The Rip
by llnond
Summary: Yesterday, I used to be a normal kid with an abnormal problem. Now I am hanging out with talking animals, getting kidnapped by evil losers, and attempting to save the universe. How did I get here? Rated T in case.
1. The Blow

**You know how it goes, it's my first story on here, cut me some slack, bla bla bla… But seriously, don't flame me. If you have nothing good or helpful to say to me about this then don't bother, it is both a waste of my time to read it and a waste of yours to type it all up. And keep this in mind, I had this story play out in my head several years ago and this is me trying to dig it out of my head and put it in words. So if this story winds up falling flat and you liked it, that is unfortunately how it has to be. *sigh* Now that I have that out of the way, let's get to it.**

A blue blur was raced across a hill in Mobius, many people had seen this blur before. Just as many people knew what, or more precisely, who that blur was. That blur happened to be the planet wide hero Sonic the Hedgehog. While many knew who this particular hero was, none of them knew what his objective specifically was. They definitely knew that he was going against Dr. Ivo Robotnic a.k.a Dr. Eggman. Both were longtime nemesis's and have been going at each other for as long as anyone can remember. As Sonic ran through the hills, he was reassuring himself that everything would be fine, but Eggman had let him know that he planned to breach dimensions as he had in the past.

Last time it had been an accident caused by chaos control and sent them all over to his good friend Chris's home world, and chaos ensued (no pun intended.) but eventually they were able to get back to their own dimension. And with one visit from Chris six months later (or six years from Chris's point of view.) they were told it would be the last time their paths crossed. Sonic reassured himself of these facts. But if Eggman said he found a way to make the crossover, he was probably telling the truth. But Eggman had lied to him before in an attempt to capture the hedgehog. But even if he did it didn't matter, Sonic had ran headfirst into these things before and he wasn't about to start cramping on his own style now. Besides he had taken his friends captive, and he couldn't let Eggman kill them.

Sonic ran into the various assortment of Eggman traps, from the mounted turrets to small robot guards. He had seen it all before, and knew how to escape and/or counter-attack.

"Eggman knows this stuff can't slow me down. Something must be up, this is probably a distraction" No sooner had he thought it had a yellow laser shot at him, and it just barely missed his foot.

"Yikes, that was a lot closer than before! I guess Eggman ramped up the difficulty a bit." as he went through the base Sonic had decided that Eggman was either testing him, or buying time. As he barely escaped a rather speedy robot, he knew that he was getting close.

Meanwhile in Eggman's lab he was putting the final touches on his machine. Cream and Cheese were whimpering in the corner of the corner of their cage and Tails was attempting to comfort them. Amy was yelling out the usual "You will never get away with this." and "Sonic wouldn't let anything happen to me."

"Doesn't matter what you say little girl, I've completed my masterpiece and there is nothing your pretty boy Sonic can do. But I will wait for him, because I need him here. He is going to trigger the machine. And I am correct; he should be here any second. " And that was a good guess because Sonic blasted into the room. And hit the giant activation button. It was so big there was almost no way he could miss it, he didn't even try to miss it with his "better sorry than safe" attitude. The explosion happened on impact, before anyone could even think about what happened. It had gone so fast the last thing anyone could remember was Sonic hitting the button.

Man my head hurts, but that's normal. Me getting stalked by a couple of punks, it's becoming normal. Dear Lord Josh, breathe slower and just find a spot to lose them! For crying out loud, how big of a wuss are you? I mean for crying out loud you know that the stand up to your bullies doesn't always work. But do have to run like a little third grader? You know that you just can blow them away with your mind, but every time you do that you and your mom have to move. And you know it's getting harder for dad to come home and visit since you keep getting farther and farther away. What are you going to do?

That's what I tell myself as I run my fastest, which is basically not fast at all, around my middle school. I was absolutely confused and I wasn't getting clearer, I just had to slow down. And then I thought that I could hide in the big bushes! After all it worked two days ago and it could work now. So I ran around the corner and slid into the little ditch I had discovered behind the bushes recently. It was the only good spot to ditch at Southeast middle school as far as I know. Lying there gave me a good chance to think about my life. I always thought better lying down in my bed or stretching out on my favorite hill in California.

Thinking back to when I used to lay there, I really miss what I can remember of California. Too bad my stupid headaches and the even more stupid telekinetic explosion caused by them wound up demolished our penthouse in Station Square. On the bright side I could escape the people who expected me to be like my dad, Christopher Thorndyke, which I know that I am nowhere nearly as smart as him. But he still loves me a lot, and has defended me from his scientist buddies who wanted to run a bunch of stupid tests on me. I just wish that he could get everything settled and come home.

For now I just live with my mom Helen Thorndyke. She has supported me throughout all of my problems, she is just as smart as my dad and has home schooled me all my life up until now, 7th grade, which started at Southeast middle school which I barely got into because of my strange birthday.

So far I like Mississippi and living in the small town of Brawnson isn't so bad either. I've kind of gotten used to it over the last two years. It is longer than any other place I have lived in next to my hometown. I have never spent much time anywhere in order to figure out how to be cooler, and not so dumb. I am convinced I have some sort of undetectable learning disability because I forget the most important and not so important things all the time. And these stupid migraines don't help either, and is probably not helping my memory either.

And I would continue boring you with my life story but I just got yanked out of my little hiding spot and onto my back. Before I can see what just threw me, a foot just stomped on my stomach and knocked the air out of me. I heard cackling and opened my eyes to see the three punks that had chased me down just standing over me.

"Had enough dweeb? We can dish out more if you want." I had just about had enough and my head began to hurt more.

"You think just because you're rich you can do whatever you want?" I received a kick to the side.

"You think that you boss around? Well bring it on." Another was kicked again. Only this time, it was closer to the head. I head felt like it was about to blow. I couldn't take it anymore.

"You know, all I asked was if I could let me by at lunch 2 days ago! And now you're trying to beat me up? Why waste your energy?" Why was I wasting my energy? I should have figured that they had made it their personal mission in life to torture me. Like they had nothing better to do but watch me suffer.

"Here's a better question, why don't you just shut up!" One swift shot to the head. I couldn't hang on any longer. See you never again Brawnson, time to go into hiding again. As I thought I was about to explode, I was engulfed in a crazy amount of light. And that's when I passed out…

**So what do you think? I know, it's probably isn't that good. Oh well, suggestions would be appreciated. OH! I am having trouble thinking for a title, so for now this is going to have to stick. I was thinking that I would ask y'all, but that wouldn't work very well seeing as you guys have no idea what is going on in my head ( or do you 0.o ) and I can't just label it something like Seed of Love (a series you guys need to check out! It's by another fan fiction author XT-421) which is a great romance story title. Ok, I am out of digital breath. Peace out!**


	2. The Freakshow pt1

**Hey I'm back, ready to write (or really finish writing the chapter, I started to write this at the same time I wrote the first chapter then came back much later. lol) So let's get this thing going! P.S. I talk more at the bottom; it would be much appreciated if you read it as well. **

* * *

Let's be honest, it's not like you can really wake yourself up. You enter sleep by either being knocked out or by just laying with your eyes shut and with a clear mind until you fall asleep. And once your asleep you can't consciously wake yourself up. You can only open your eyes when your body let's you. So when I was finally able to have control over my eyelids, I didn't know what to expect.

Last time I blew up there was a big crater around me. And that's what I expected, but it turned out to be a different story. When I woke up I was out in a strange field. And it looked vaguely like my favorite place on earth. This had to be a dream. I was just in a sticky situation. So 1 of 3 things must be true.

I was dead. This is how heaven looked. But I out ruled that idea simply because my head wouldn't kill me, maybe anyone else around me but definitely not me. Plus those guys wouldn't beat someone to death, they may just be nuts but I doubt they are that nutty. So mark that out.

I was still knocked out and this was a dream. But in a dream you can't control what happens and I certainly have control of my motor functions. So this one makes no sense.

I was somewhere else; maybe I was moved or blown somewhere else via the explosion. But I have no injuries other than a splitting head and I doubt that if I was injured they would move me to a hill and leave me there. But I refuse to rule that out simply because the others reasons have been ruled out.

So now that I think about it, why am I running these things through my mind when I should get up and take a look around? I get up and start surveying the area and all of the sudden there was a strange tree that stuck out, the form looked like an average tree just standing straight up but the interesting thing about it was the fruit on it. It was shaped like a lopsided watermelon but it was yellow with pink spots on it. Either this was a fruit that had grown wrong and was poisonous or… To be honest, I have no idea what "or" would be in this case. This was too strange for me to think straight, not that my headache helped any. I think I'll just stay here until someone finds me and then figure out what to do.

* * *

Sonic the Hedgehog was just waking up, and was going down a mental checklist of what could be injured.

"Legs: check, head: check, arms: check, backside: not so much. Ha, good thing I grabbed that ring before I want in there." Sonic got up and surveyed the area, it certainly looked like the Mobius he knows and loves. "Wait a minute," he thought "If Eggman got his way, which he did this time, then I should be on Earth. I know this isn't Earth; I've been over pretty much every inch of that place. But what went wrong?" Sonic didn't sit around thinking about it for long; he got up and began to take a look around to see if any damage had been done to other areas, considering the fact he had pretty much been outsmarted (something that has only happened a few times).

He started out semi-slow, trying to build up speed until he could go at his usual blinding speed. Before he could do that though, he saw a familiar looking boy sitting on a nearby hill.

* * *

We are coming to you live from Southeast middle school where an explosion has gone off ripping apart half of the school. Sources say that a 7th grade boy, a brand new student, is responsible for the explosion. Officers are scanning the area for the boy and any clue as to what set it off.

"We are doing everything we can to figure out what was used to set the bomb off" says one officer, "but there have been reports of similar explosions all over the country." Several students had minor injuries from the explosion, including three students who claimed to have seen the boy.

"We were just trying to find him to welcome him to the school and see if he wanted to be our friend."

"Yeah, we searched all over the school trying to find the dwee- I mean guy, and we finally found him."

"What those two said, and once we found him, we started to hang out with him, and suddenly, BOOM! And that's when we blanked out."

The manhunt is still going on for the boy; if anyone knows anything about what went on here please contact the number below. More details at 6. Your watching WLTB News Channel 3

* * *

This is crazy, who would be out here in a place like this. And once I see them, what am I going to say? This doesn't exactly look like my hometown, who knows what I have done now.

"Chris?"

"AHH! WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?"

"Sorry, you look a lot like a friend of mine."

My head began to race as I began to look at him "Um, you're a talking hedgehog."

He looked at himself and as if to humor me he said "Huh, I guess I am. Hi, I'm Sonic the Hedgehog. What's your name?"

Ok, let me think about this. In front of me I have a talking hedgehog. And not only is it talking to me, but it's walking and postured like a human! To be honest this sounds familiar to me, I just can't remember where I heard it.

"Hello? Are you there? You're not hurt are you? You have a big bruise on your head; do you think you have a concussion?" Ah, now I remember, and boy oh boy is this big!

"Wait, your Sonic the Hedgehog? My mom and dad talk about you a lot! They say you saved them a couple of times, is it true? Or do I just think I have control of myself and all of this is really a dream? Ouch!" This thing just hit my head!

"Hmm, unless we are sharing a dream and its true what they say about pain being in the head. I am pretty sure we are awake. But anyways, yeah I did that sort of thing in your dimension, but it seems like forever ago when that happened. Plus, when I was talking to Tails he said that after awhile would forget about us except for the people that closely knew us. So what is your name anyways, you never told me."

"Sorry, my name is Josh Thorndyke. I guess you got to know my parents pretty well huh?" I have never seen a creature look so shocked, not that I am used to talking to animals. "Are you serious? I knew them really well, your dad even came here once. No wonder you look just like him, only difference is that your hair's flat instead of spiky and you're wearing long dark blue jeans and a black t-shirt rather than the silly bright color and red shirt your dad wore."

"Ha ha yeah, my dad showed me pictures of when he was a kid and we both laugh about that! He looked hilarious… To be honest Sonic, I sort of miss my dad."

"What do you mean? You seem to have only been awake for a few minutes. And while I see that it's strange being in a new place and all, I don't quite understand why…" Huh, why did he stop? He's looking above my head, so I turn around. "Sonic, what the heck is that? I mean, it's not every day that I see a big red oval shaped… thing."

"That's Eggman. Hey Eggy, nice to see you made it out of your own trap alive!"

"It isn't like I failed Sonic; I managed to test out my new robots and proved that dimensional crossing still works. The proof is standing below me." Then he looked in my direction. "Hello Christopher, we meet again."

"First off baldy, I'm not Chris. I'm his son. Second, what are you talking about dimensional crossing? 3D still looks like 3D as far as I'm concerned."

"You arrogant little child, It means that crossing between one universe to the other, is possible. This means I can capture better troops and make Eggman land a reality!"

"Just to let you know Josh, Eggman land is a stupid theme park he has been trying to build for years."

"What's so wrong with a theme park Sonic? Sounds like it would be fun and great for tourism."

"I know, it's just that the way he goes about it means enslaving people and freeing demons and stupid crap like that."

"Oh, well in that case this guys nuts. Hey baldy, can't you just get a loan or get the country to approve of your park or something that makes more sense? Enslaving people isn't funny and setting demons free is just strange!" For some reason, this felt like a cheesy cartoon. "Shut up! If you can't see the brilliance of my plan then you can be the first slave I capture." That didn't sound too good, time to run!

Ack! Man, I didn't get far at all! Guess there isn't much I can do to free my feet! "SONIC, A LITTLE HELP HERE!"

* * *

**Hmm, writing in first person the way I want to write it isn't working out so well. I'm either going to have to work on that or stick with third person. I am going to think about it. Anyways, the only reason I got this chapter done is because I had started to write it and then when I came back to it the writing of the chapter went downhill from there. Oh, and thanks to mardfet for being the first reviewer! I'm definitely thankful the first review I received wasn't a flame from a certain person *cough* Lord Kelvin *cough* but that fear has passed seeing as how stupid it was. I haven't even gotten around to blocking him yet but believe me I will. A note to people, when looking for examples on how to write constructive criticism please don't look to him. All he does is flame and call it constructive criticism, constructive criticism is telling the people what they are good at and putting it nicely as to how to improve. Now that I am done ranting, I'm not too sure as to when I will get back to writing this. Don't expect me to post really anything anytime soon. It doesn't matter that I'm homeschooled; I have a social life too. Plus I like to read fan fiction that other people write too. Currently I am rereading Hero High and Hero High: Earth style and finish reading Hero High: ****Sphinx Academy**** all of which are by **** so you guys should check those out. Anyways, remember to review. Thanks!**


	3. The Freakshow pt2

**Hello again, I have finally found some free time to write this. And I have decided to try to keep this in 3****rd**** person. And only will write in 1****st**** person when Josh is contemplating something. Because personally I believe that it will be much easier to show what is going on in his head that way rather that in 3****rd**** person, that and I have a feeling I wasn't writing it correctly. I also plan on not writing big author notes again, because you guys are here to read a story and not see my thoughts. All I ask of you guys is that you will review. Because I do see that you guys are reading my stories. So again, PLEASE REVIEW! Now let's get on to it.**

* * *

"Just hang on!" Sonic wasn't sure what to do. I seemed like something had happened to Robotnik since the explosion that he didn't understand. It seemed that he had some sort of personality change, but it didn't matter. What did matter was that he needed to get Josh back, and seeing as he had screwed up the last mission, he was going to need Tails and maybe Knuckles on this one. So without a second thought, Sonic sped off to Tails' workshop. He was hoping that Tails had made out ok.

Meanwhile, Tails was in his workshop, staring at the little plant in a glass cube on his desk. It had been almost a year since Cosmo's death. This seed, one of the several that were spread out all over the galaxy, was the last thing he had left of Cosmo to hold onto. And he made sure to treat it as best he could. He even made a little tank for the flower that filled the soil with nutrients, made sure to water the plant the exact amount it needed, and made the tank the right temperature. In case you haven't noticed, he missed Cosmo dearly and hadn't stopped thinking about her since her death. He wondered what if had come up with another way to stop Dark Oak; he had theorized different ways to defeat him but all it left him was frustrated with himself. He wondered and imagined what life would be like if Cosmo lived and they were together. What his confession to her would be like and what their first date would be like. Their first kiss, his proposal, their wedding, their kids, growing old; Tails had thought about all of this.

And while he tried to put up face, his friends had noticed that he wasn't the same ever since then and had always tried to help him get his mind off all of this. But everything they tried had failed. Even when other life or death situations hadn't managed to bring him out of this, and his friends saw that it was getting sick. He even tried to reason through his misery; he even wondered why he couldn't move on. And it all came back to one thing, he loved her. And her death had basically been a big preverbal stab into his heart.

"Hey Tails," he heard a gruff voice call his name "You said you needed my help with something? I hope it's quick, I've been having trouble keeping Rouge away from the Master Emerald and I have a feeling that she is going to try something."

"Hey Knuckles, I need your help testing a machine I made." Tails reached from beside his desk and pulled out a big silver dome shaped helmet with wires coming out of it. Knuckles just moaned.

"I don't think so, last time I helped you with a contraption like that my fur turned green and I couldn't walk straight." Knuckles shivered at the flashback that came to his mind, "I can't tell you how hard it was doing my job that week."

"Awe come on Knuckles, I really need to know if this works. It's supposed to increase the intelligence of the person that wears it for 30 minutes. And you're the perfect person to test it on." Knuckles just gave Tails a weird look.

"Wait, what?"

"If you where it for a while it will make you smarter, I need to test and observe the immediate results as well as the long term results. You are the perfect person to test it on because if you get smarter, there will be a big change! Plus there is a chance that it could mess up the brain and also make you slightly dumber. You are perfect because you are already as dumb as an ox."

"Why you little…!" Just then Sonic rushed on the scene interrupting Knuckles from his little freak out fest.

"Hey guys, I really need your help! Eggman took a kid hostage, and I figured I need your help." They hadn't seen Sonic this way in a while.

"Um, you want to let G.U.N. take care of it? I mean people are kidnapped and taken hostage all the time. What makes this so important?"

"I'll tell you about it on the way there!" They began running as fast as they could to Tails hanger, Knuckles wondering why this was so important, Tails flipping all the switches on his little remote to ready the tornado, and Sonic just wishing they could go faster. Reaching the hanger they all hoped in, Sonic hopped up on the wings as Tails and Knuckles hopped into the seats. And with that they took off.

"Ok, the reason this kid is so important is because he's Chris's son. I found him on one of the hills and Eggman came and took him."

Tails began to get an excited look on his face, "That's cool; I always wondered what happened to Chris ever since he left! But wait, didn't Eggman tell us that the quantum alignment that brought Chris here only happened once every 10000 years or something like that?"

"He said 'It could be 1 week, it could be 10000 years.' He just didn't know, and maybe figured out how to get through without the alignment. I don't know, but he took him captive and who knows what Eggman might do to him. He may make him his slave; he may run some creepy tests on him. All I know is that we need to get him out of there!"

* * *

Meanwhile, in Eggman's lab…

1st person, Josh Thorndyke

"Let me out of here you chrome domed doofus! You can't treat me like this! What am I? Some animal you just lock up? This is ridicules! Let me out or else…" Deciding I shouldn't tell him my little secret, I was starting to feel stressed out and a little claustrophobic in what seemed like a titanium cage! There was almost no way out of it and the cage seemed like it was meant to hold smaller animals, because it was more of a flat cage and I had to lie on my stomach.

How did I get here? How did I get taken hostage by some chubby, bald mad man? How did I get put in some cold animal cage that I can barely fit in and placed in a dark and uninviting room? Last I checked I was some 12 year old loser that had to move around a lot and had stress problems. How did I wind up in a totally different place, with animals that act like humans, while a human takes me captive for who knows what reason? Suddenly getting kicked by jerks didn't seem so bad. And having to move from place to place didn't seem so bad either. So why did this have to happen? Was it something I said?

Maybe it had to do with the argument I had with my mom when I first got here. That was a royal pain. I had pretty much snapped.

"I'm so sick of moving mom! Why can't we just stay there and let them come at us! I'd be so happy if I was famous!"

"No you wouldn't! You would be miserable! You complain all the time that you're compared to your father. If you became famous, then the whole world would be comparing you to him!"

"Well its better then moving a ton! I'm sick of it!"

"Not only would the rest of the world be comparing you to your father, but so many scientists would be looking for you and running experiments on you! Your father was trying to protect you by suggesting that we move!"

"Why can't he finish everything and come home? Does he not care about us?"

"Because he is having trouble, there is some sort of energy rip that he is trying to deal with and so it's complicating things. Believe me; I am sure that he wants to be with us just as much as we want to be with us."

"Well if he didn't have to worry about helping us move so much then how is he going to be able to focus?"

"Well if you could learn to control your head then this wouldn't happen, you want to fix this? Then fix you!" Now at the time it seemed really mean for her to say this, but I had annoyed her so much and she wasn't entirely wrong. I had gotten us into this crazy ride and I had been complaining to them like it was their fault the whole way down. So from that point on, I would try to keep my headaches in check no matter what it took. Even if it meant a few extra pills every now and then; and the one day I thought I could go without them I managed to cause the biggest fiasco we have ever been through. I guess that was God's punishment for drug use. How could he give me a crazy ability like this? He got me here, so what's the point? Did it just so happen that I was his only little experimental being that he liked to mess with? Or did he do all of this for something more?

I didn't have too long to contemplate, because it was as if he was timing his entrance with my thoughts and entered with that along with a tall, skinny yellow robot and a short, stout silver. The man seemed to have a gleeful smile about him, something was up.

"Well hello there boy! Sorry for the cramped space but I haven't been able to use this cage at all since I came to this dimension! And I figured, 'Hey, I have to use it sometime!'" This guy was starting to piss me off.

"What kind of bonehead are you? You take me hostage, put me in a cage that clearly no human was meant to be in and then come in and apologize? I guess the talking animals should have been a signal that this place is a little messed up!"

"That's what I first thought! You see, I wasn't from this world originally. I was from your world, but due to circumstances which are still unknown to me this day I traveled to this world. I was about 7 and was a genius from birth. That's when I set out to conquer this universe. Only reason I was know I was from your world was because I had been there once I doubt they remember anything about me."

This utterly confused me, "Why's that? My mother and father have told me a lot about you and from what I heard there is no way anyone could forget you!"

"I am honored that you would say that!"

"Don't get too cocky!"

"I intend to! But alas, they should be forgetting me at an alarming rate. That is due to this one simple fact."

"Dear god ole' man! Just finish your little already!"

"Don't rush me boy," He clears his throat giving me a clear sign I should prepare for a lot of hot air, "The two worlds are in parallel universes and share the exact same position in time and space, each is unaware of the other's existence!" Phew! Not very much hot air!

"You say it like you have said that before!" (A/N He actually did say that in episode 33 of Sonic X)

"I probably have, the point is that they are trying to remain unknown to each other. The point is that only the people that knew me and Sonic closely will remember anything in the end, people such as your parents."

"So if it is constantly trying to repair itself then how did I manage to get here?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Something is still off; Chris claimed that he was 18 in his world. That would mean that he would have been 6 years seeing as he was 12 when we got there. But it had been 6 months for us."

"Wait, didn't you say that the universes were parallel and that they share the same position in time? How is there room for a time dilation? (A/N It is possible he knows the term since his dad is a scientist. Oh, and BTW PLEASE REVIEW!)

"Either they were unaligned and are now realigned or it is some rather mindless plot hole. But that doesn't matter, the jump could have had some perverse effects and I want to run some tests."

Heck-to-the-NO! My dad had been saving my butt from other jacked-up scientists and now's my turn to fight back! "No way! I have been dodging tests like that since I was little, and some fat baldy and his two pathetic robots are not going to break that!"

"Doctor Eggman, he seems to be rather ready to put up a fight," chimed the yellow one.

"Indeed, I think this could get messy. You sure you want us to get him? The little silver one chimed in too.

"Do I look like I care? Get him out of that cage and bring him to the test chamber."

**WARNING! WARNING! PERIMITER BREECH! INTRUDER'S MAKING THERE WAY TO THE CENTER…**

* * *

3rd Person

** …OF THE BASE, DEFENCES ARE COMING ONLINE! 50% COMPLETE**

Sonic had his usual game face on as he ran through the base; he got a serious speed boost thanks to Tails dropping him bomb style into the facility. I always surprised him how fast Eggman managed to assemble his robots and traps. "He has to have a secret factory somewhere," he thought, "If I ever find that thing, JACKPOT!"

**100% COMPLETE! DEFENCES ARE FULLY ONLINE! OPENING FIRE!**

"Uh oh, gotta run!" Sonic dashed down a straight corridor as hundreds of turrets fired down from above. To Sonic, the corridor felt like a trench as I ran down it. Barely drifting enough to turn the corner, he continued his charge.

"Hey Tails, is he in?

"Yeah," Tails replied over the comms device "and he is getting into position. I sure hope he knows what he's doing."

"Now Tails, WOAH!" Sonic barely looked up in time to dodge the robot swatting at him. "I guess that's why they tell people no talking on phones while driving! But really, Knuckles isn't that dumb! Have some faith."

"I just hope that he doesn't make a deal with Eggman again. Heheh…" With that the screen on the comms device went black. Sonic knew he was getting closer as the intensity increased.

Meanwhile, Eggman and his robots were monitoring the screen in the test room. Josh was tied up in the back trying to wiggle himself out to no avail. Decoe and Bocoe were standing on either side of the doctor.

"He's getting closer! Should we ready the escape pod as always?"

"Yeah, this isn't looking too good. I'm with Bocoe on this one."

"SHUT UP YOU TWO! Never once have I asked you to prepare it; why would I want you to prepare it now?" They both looked to each other and then back to him and said in unison.

"Because you always wind up using it," A snicker could be heard from the back of the room.

"FINE; you can prep it if you want!" Over all of the sirens and gunfire, somehow they managed to hear the most annoying high pitch cry know to… just about everybody! And who did it belong to; the most annoying dark chao that ever lived, Bokkun.

"What is it now, Bokkun?" Eggman never liked Bokkun really, but for some reason the chao stuck around and was loyal to him anyways.

"That red dummy came and hit me on the head! I just woke up!" His voice was even worse than his cry.

"Hmm, Knuckles is here? This could be interesting!"

"What does that mean?" Everyone just turned around and looked at me as if I said I thought Los Angeles was in New York.

"I take it your parents didn't tell you much about Knuckles," Eggman said, "But to put it bluntly, he is rather stupid. On many accounts I have actually tricked him into making a deal with me just to turn around and stab him in the back, and yet he never seems to learn from his mistake. So I have a multitude of options as to how I will deal with him."

"Wow, he must be an idiot if you were able to convince him to work with you!" Josh replied

"You'd be surprised; I'm very convincing when I want to be. I actually convinced your world of a number of things. And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for that meddling hedgehog and that stupid dad of yours too!"

"Ok, first off my dad isn't stupid! At least the things he does are good and work out in the end for him; your plans always seem to fall apart! Second: you stole that basic line from Scooby Doo!"

Suddenly, smoke filled the room! And a loud crash could be heard from the back of the room. As soon as the smoke cleared, Josh had disappeared with the glass panel that he had previously been tied to in pieces on the floor. And the robots as well as Bokkun ran around in panic.

"What just happened? You three chill! We need to figure out what that stupid hedgehog did with the boy. Computer, locate the hedgehog and the boy!... computer? COMPUTER, STATUS REPORT! COMPUTERRRRRRRRRRRRR!" Eggman's worst fear had just been realized. Somehow they managed to disable his computer, and he was for the most part powerless to do anything but to sit back and think about his retaliation plan. But his computer wasn't totally useless, because it came back online long enough to give him a little piece of information that wrecked his train of thought.

**SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED! 3 MINUTES UNTIL IMPLOSION!**

"It looks like we will be using the escape pod after all!"

* * *

***sigh* I hope it doesn't take this long to write the other chapters… HEY, I HAVE A REAL NAME FOR THE STORY NOW! YAY!**


	4. The Escape

**lol, I must have done something right, I got some faves! While that is cool, I would appreciate it if you would review also and give me some constructive criticism. I can't get any better otherwise. And to ****jakeroo123, if it was a crossover then I would put it in the crossover area, plus stay tuned, because I have something interesting that involves Mario.** ** NOW ONWARD! **

* * *

Sonic was running swiftly through the fields while hanging on to him by the hand. Joshua couldn't run nearly as fast as Sonic, so he had started out pushing of the ground and letting Sonic carry him while he was in the air. It quickly evolved into Joshua hanging on for dear life while flapping through the air like clothes hanging on a clothes line on a windy day. While he found it easier than trying to jump up off the ground, he now had to worry about hanging on for dear life as well as the possibility of what would happen if Sonic stopped suddenly.

"Um, Sonic was it?" Joshua said rather quietly, as it was hard to speak at the speed they were going. "Could we slow down just a tad? I don't think baldy is going to catch us any time soon." Sonic heard this and began to slow down and come to a stop, all the while Joshua was trying not to fall flat on his face or trip. It didn't work well as Joshua fell on the grass sliding a good 20 feet on his arm.

"Uh, I think that I will be OK," Josh said "I just hope I don't have to get used to doing that, I doubt that I would be able to." He began checking for broken bones and got up.

"Ha ha, I'm sorry. I'm not too used to running with someone else, I either carry them bridal style or I slow down to run at their speed. But I didn't carry you bridal style because that would just be weird, and since we needed to get out of there we didn't have time to slow down."

"So what did you do back there? I mean smoke filled the room and next thing I know I am hanging on for dear life!"

"Well, Tails dropped me off and took Knuckles to a different part of the base so he could take apart the wires. Knuckles may be stupid, but when it comes to blunt destruction nobody can beat him."

"Who are they? I haven't seen my dad in so long I haven't had a chance to ask him about you guys and my mom just remembers you and she barely remembers Eggman." Joshua just looked at the ground.

"What do you mean? Has something happened to your dad?"

"He has been working for years on some stupid rip that just showed up. And I keep making his work harder for him due to something I don't feel like talking about right now. So who are Tails and Knuckles?"

"Tails is a really smart yellow fox with two tails; he also flies a plane called the x tornado, but he has several different versions of that plane. Knuckles in a red echidna that guards the master emerald, I would tell you more but I have a feeling that you will find out more about it soon enough. He isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed."

"Oh yeah, that must be the dummy baldy said he had tricked before. So where are we _meeting up with them?"_

"We agreed to meet somewhere in this general area. Not too sure... Wow that thing's fast! They already caught up with us!" Joshua turned around to see Eggman and his minions approach. It was Eggman's standard Egg mobile, which often functioned as his escape vehicle. It was a little hovercraft made of silver steel but had a little black balled curve on the bottom. Only this one had two guns attached to them.

"Ha ha ha, you really thought you could escape us? We were always right behind you!"

"Then how come you are just showing up right now?" Eggman's quips never made much sense to Joshua, as he seemed to have a comeback every time he said something.

"Shut up, boy!" Eggman's eyes suddenly went black along with his personality. "You have annoyed me long enough, prepare to feel my wrath!"

"Josh, hide!" From there they split into two different directions. While Josh ran to the trees, Sonic sprinted towards in Eggman's direction. Using a rock to ramp off of, Sonic flew up into the air and curled himself into a blue ball getting ready to perform his famous homing attack. But right before he flung himself down, Eggman opened fire. And this threw him off; Eggman usually didn't pull dirty moves in a fight. But it probably had to do with the dark aura that he took on. But these split second thoughts didn't last long as some of the bullets slit his sides and he began to fall.

"Sonic!" Joshua ran out from the trees to catch him, and he set Sonic on the ground gently. "Sonic, just hang on alright? I think they'll be here soon!" Joshua looked up at Eggman to see him holding his head trying to wrestle with himself.

"Ack, No!" Eggman's black aura began to flicker, but he couldn't get rid of it. "Be gone! AH!" It was futile, and Eggman's body was taken over by this aura. "Now, it's time for you to die!" Joshua picked up Sonic and ran for the trees as fast as he could while Eggman rained bullets down on them. His head began to throb, and he knew he was almost to his breaking point. He ran and set Sonic behind some natural cover.

"I really didn't want to do this, but this time it may do some good!" He ran back out, one or two bullets took of some skin but he kept running. He had to get as close as he could to Eggman, and surprisingly Eggman never backed up but just held his ground, it's not like the boy looked much like a threat. He got under Eggman and began to stress himself; it wasn't hard to get him to that point since Eggman had been shooting at him. "Peace out, baldy!" He braced himself on the ground as his head reached its limit. His long hair flew up as a strong blast flew out, rocking the whole area. The Egg mobile, as well as everything in the area, was sent flying in the blast. The trees had been uprooted and those that weren't were torn in half. This was Joshua's first time seeing the devastation he caused as it happened, as every other time he had closed his eyes and saw nothing. It was too much for him, and he passed out. As he laid there, he thought he could see his house, he thought he could see his parents.

* * *

Chris and Helen Thorndyke sat on their bed trying to comfort each other. Chris held Helen in his arms as she cried onto his shoulder.

"What do you think happened to him Chris?"

"I don't know, I just don't know. But we will find him; I promise you that we will find him." Chris was telling himself that as much as he was telling Helen, even he wasn't sure he would ever see their son again.

"But where could he have gone? And what will happen if the world finds out about his ability? We won't be there to protect him." She began to wonder if it would be better to say her sun blew the school up with explosives or tell about his secret. If he lied about the bomb, he would spend his life in prison. If he told the truth, then he would spend the rest of his life in a different prison.

"We will just have to hope that he has learned enough to make the right decisions. I would like to think that we both, especially you, taught him well."

"But he's twelve!" She screamed, "He still needs our help!"

"And we will help him. We will do everything we can to find him; I am dropping everything at the lab until we can find out what happened to him."

"I just hope you're right. I love you, Chris."

"I love you too, Helen."

* * *

1st person

Sometimes when you dream, correction, every time you dream, you think that what happens is true. Then you wake up and you figure, "I should have figured it was a dream." While other times you think, "OMG, that seemed so real!" But this dream with my parents talking seemed like more than a dream, it felt so close to reality that I had a feeling that if I woke up then I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the dream world and the real world. I'm not even sure the world with talking hedgehogs and bumbling villains was real. For all I knew, I was passed out where I had gotten beat up., and that I would be waking up soon. I wasn't terribly sure.

I had read in a comic with a guy who got shot, and then fell asleep only to wake up in another world. He couldn't tell which was real, but later he found out that they were both very real. And the other world he had woken up in was actually the future of earth. Then he used the knowledge of both worlds to save them. What if that's what had happened to me? What if they were the same world? But if that were true, then how did the two worlds collide?

Even if this isn't the future, the point still stands. Am I supposed to save the world? I hope not, because whoever picked me out needs glasses! I am no hero! I have no muscle whatsoever, I have average smarts (if not that much), the only thing cool about me makes me pass out and cause a lot of destruction. So the purpose of me coming here is undetermined. But I doubt it's an accident, I have seen too much and experienced too much to experience accidents on this large a scale. And all these thoughts are assuming that I'm not dreaming and I'm about to wake up in my own little…

"Hey kid, you alright?" A gruff voice said.

* * *

3rd person

"Ugh, where am I?" Joshua began to gather his bearings and saw all of the destruction.

"Do these powers of yours induce amnesia? That would be an interesting side affect." A golden yellow figure said. As Joshua's vision began to fix, he realized that 3 figures were standing above him. A hedgehog that had a cool blue attitude to match the color of his fur, a young looking yellow fox that had two fluffy tails, and a red gruff looking… honestly Joshua had no idea what the heck this thing was but it had two spikes on the end of each of its hands. They all looked concerned. Joshua got up and began to brush himself off.

"No, I'm fine. HEY, where is that creep who was shooting at us? I'm going to kick his…"

"He's gone," Sonic said, "I guess you blew him away with that blast of yours. How did you do that?"

"Personally I have no clue. Even my own dad can't figure it out. All I know is that I get a headache and it gets to a point where it becomes unbearable and the next thing I know, everything around me falls apart! I don't know how, but it just does! And I have been doing everything I can to stop the headaches ever since the first time it happened."

"That's interesting," Tails said, "When was the first time it got so bad that happened?"

"Um, it was during the summer. I was having a classic Super Mario Bros. game marathon."

"That sounds like the stupidest game I've ever heard of, HA!" Sonic laughed for a good while and then stopped.

"I loved those games when I was younger. But the games get lamer with every game they come out with. But I played for hours and hours!"

"That makes sense, is it possible for me to run a couple of tests on you?"

"I don't think so fox boy! I won't let anyone run some tests on me!"

"Come on, just a few short ones?" The fox pleaded, "I mean, don't you want to find out what this is and how to control it? I promise they will take only a few hours."

"Then how come my parents warned me about people who wanted to test me?"

"Well it's like this; your world is not as far along technologically. Plus, they would all be doing them for their only greedy purposes, and they would essentially enslave you."

"I promise you man," Sonic chimed in, "Tails is just curious. You can tell him when to stop whenever you are getting sick of them."

"Well… alright. I guess you can run the tests on me. Just promise me they won't hurt."

"Don't worry," he said, "My tests won't hurt at all, and they are more like a few scans more than anything."

"Ok, let's go." And with that, they all headed to X Tornado. "Wow! This thing's cool! How fast can it go?

"To put it simply, it can go almost as fast as Sonic. Plus it can morph into a robot that can fight." Tails always enjoyed talking about his inventions.

"That's awesome! So how far is your place from here?"

"Not that far, we'll be there in about a minute." They all hopped into the jet and flew off.

* * *

It had been at least an hour since they finished with the tests, and Joshua was wondering around Tails' house. It wasn't all that big, but all the inventions that he had made were all over the place. One machine let you put in the ingredients, gave you a list of recipes that used those ingredients, and made the food for you! Another one was an experimental robot that help do chores for Tails and could also help with some experiments, but it was obviously had some kinks left in it because it tried to take and wash Joshua's shirt while it was still on him. These were the sort of things littered about tails' house. And according to Sonic, Tails was always thinking up and making more. This kid was more than a genius; he was like a Newton, Einstein, and Franklin all rolled into one! And he could build! And he couldn't have been older than Josh.

He wandered into the lower part of the workshop where Tail made everything. He found out that where Tails ran all his data and experiments was in a room off to the side. He wondered around all the half finished machines and looked up at all the equipment that hung on the ceiling that seemed like it was 300 feet high! He wondered over to the side and saw what he thought was an aquarium. Turned out that it was where a very healthy looking plant was growing. It looked pretty good and seemed as if it were about to bloom. It was the loveliest plant he had ever seen, and it mesmerized him. He put his hand on the glass.

"Hey! Don't touch anything!" He heard Tails say from across the workshop. He was flying over using his two tails like propellers. "If anything happened to it, I don't know what I'd do!"

"Really, what's so important about this plant?"

"It was given to me by a… friend, and she's gone. This is the only thing I have to remind me of her." Tail began to look at the plant wistfully. He looked as if he was deep in thought.

"Hmm, hey Tails… Tails, TAILS!"

"Huh? Oh sorry, I was just thinking. So what do you need?"

"I was wondering if you were done running the tests. Have you found anything?" Tails stood up with a look that seemed as if remembered something.

"Oh yeah, I totally forgot! I found something really important that I need to show you! Do you know where Sonic and Knuckles are? I want to tell them as well."

Joshua began to think about it. "Hmm, I think Sonic was scavenging for ingredients for chili dogs or something like that…" He could see Tails giggling, "He likes chili dogs a lot, huh?"

"Yup, he sure does!"

"And Knuckles was freaking out mumbling about some emerald being stolen again and how if he ever found you then he would turn you into the no tailed fox." Tails had a genuinely scared look on his face at these words.

"Um, just get Sonic. I'll fill in Knuckles later. Then meet me in the testing room." Joshua began to wonder if this was good news, bad news, or news that would change his life forever.

* * *

**OMG, what's going to happen? Is it the "You only have a little while to live" type news or the "Your parents did something stupid before you were born, now you are going to be green forever" type news? Find out in the next chapter!**


	5. The Truth

**Hey there, welcome back. As I have said, I am going to avoid rambling. And the people that are following this story I think (hope) that they are anxious to read the next part. Here we go, dubstep blaring!**

* * *

They found Sonic and walked over to Tails' lab. Joshua, even while he was being scanned and tested, couldn't believe all the equipment Tails had in his lab. He felt like he was stepping into a sci-fi movie. From all the cool boards, to all the cool test chambers, to the super computer at the edge of his lab, it all amazed Joshua. Even when he visited his dad's lab, he had never seen anything like this.

"This is freaking awesome! Where did you get this stuff?"

"For the most part, I made most of my equipment. But there are a few exceptions of course. But we aren't here to drool over my equipment, are we?"

"So what did you find out Tails?" Joshua had decided that Sonic was a cool friend. Sonic was just as excited as you even if it had nothing to do with you. He had a cocky attitude, but it was the kind that you could easily look over.

"Well, when I ran the data through the computer and looked at the results, it turns out that the energy Joshua uses to cause those explosions is telekinetic energy."

"Telekinetic? You mean that I can pick up things with my head? That's so cool!"

"I agree, but it doesn't just mean that you can use it to pick up stuff. You can actually use it to make your legs move at amazing speeds, making you go really fast. Maybe you can go even faster than Sonic, if used correctly."

"Hey, I like being the fastest thing on two feet! And while I do like the idea of not having to go slow so that you can keep up with me, I like being special!"

"You still are, and Amy can testify to that! But back on the subject of abilities, you can push off the ground also. You can even do this to fly for a while, but this takes much more energy than just running fast or jumping high. It can also remove pressure off your head when you use this power, which can make your head stop hurting. I haven't even scratched the surface of what you can do! I could find out more but I promised you no more tests."

"Wow," Joshua developed kind of a half smile on his face, he looked as if he was about to cry.

"Is something wrong?" Sonic asked?

"Nothing, it's just… I've been trying to figure out what this was that made the explosion. And now that I know, I just don't know how I feel. I mean all my life I felt like I was just a giant screw up, and now I have powers like a super hero! But I still have one question that I still don't have the answer to." Sonic and Tails just looked at him.

"And what would that be?" Tails asked.

"Why do I have these powers? And why am I here on this planet?"

Tail's was just about to speak when a loud and obnoxious "SOOOOOOONIIIIIIIIC!" was screamed, which was followed by a pink hedgehog entering the room. She had on a red dress with white rimming on the edge, and she wore red boots with a white line down the middle.

"Are you ok? I heard you went to fight Eggman again to recover someone, and you got shot at!"

"Yeah, I'm fine Amy. This is who we went to recover. Amy, this is Josh, he got teleported to our world. And Eggman kidnapped him. And guess what, he's actually" Amy cut him off right then.

"Hi there, so I guess you know who the bad guy is now. I'm Amy; I'm Sonic's girlfriend so you might as well not even bother trying to flirt with me."

"You don't have to worry about that. You are good looking, honestly I'm more attracted to girl's that are human and don't have annoying voices." Joshua might as well have set off a bomb.

"What did you say about me?" Amy armed herself with her hammer as Joshua began to back up. He had his first impression of Amy, don't mess with this chick!

"Umm, ahh, I didn't say that you had an annoying voice. It's just a characteristic that I don't like… Um, how heavy is that thing?"

"Ok Amy, just chill. I go a feeling that Chris would want him back in one piece. After all, I got a feeling that both he and his mom are worried as it is."

"So you're Chris's son? Well at least his father wasn't a brat!" Joshua immediately stood up straighter.

"Actually, it's not that I agree with him, but my great uncle could testify against that claim. He has said it many times before."

"So what? Your uncle was an arrogant jerk who wouldn't accept the defeat that he got every time he thought he could go faster than Sonic."

"Well, at least I don't freak out and try to kill people when I get told something that I don't like. At least I'm not a fan boy who will cling to them with the blind hope that someday they will get married. I have already noticed these two things and I haven't even known you for longer than 45 seconds! Isn't that just sad?"

"You want to go chump?" Joshua began to think about the situation, and he began to calm down.

"No, because honestly I need all the friends I can get. And I know someone who made a few dents in a friendship of his and totally ruined it beyond repair. (A/N: don't ask about that) So want to start that over?"

"Sure, sorry about that. Hi, I'm Amy Rose. I'm Sonic's girlfriend."

"Hi, I'm Joshua Thorndyke. And I don't have a girlfriend, and with my luck and total lack of skills I will never get one." He walked over to Tails and whispered into his ear. "Are they really dating? Sonic seems to like living the fast life too much to slow down enough to date someone."

"Amy is a self declared girlfriend of Sonic, I can never tell if Sonic minds or not. But hey, he got a girlfriend fast. What more could a guy like him possibly want?"

"I have no idea. Hey Sonic, you want to go for a run to check out my powers?"

"Now Joshua, I have to warn you. Since these were minor tests, I'm not too sure about will happen if you use your powers too much. It could be disastrous! Who knows what might happen?"

"Ok, thanks Tails. I'll keep that in mind. Come on Sonic, let's go"

"Alright," With that, both of them ran out of the room. Sonic going his usual speed and Joshua ran at his usual speed so that he didn't run into a wall because of a lack of experience. When they got to an open field, Joshua prepped himself. He had never used this power before, so he didn't know how to focus it. He figured it should come naturally. So he counted off. 1… He never thought he would reach this point. 2… He never thought he could possibly have special abilities. 3! He began to run. He saw the world around him start to bend as he felt his legs move at breakneck speeds. The sensation was great, as he sped past trees and animals and out into the field where he had originally woken up. He ran faster, carefree. This must be how Sonic feels when he runs this fast. The wind rushing into his face, the ground beneath him barely getting touched as he ran so fast he practically hovered above it all. He turned around to see if Sonic was behind him, not a smart move because he tripped and started tumbling to a stop.

He would have to make a note not to look backwards when he ran. As he got up, he saw a 10 foot metallic robot standing in front of him. He began to back up, not wanting to piss the robot off.

"Where is the one called Tails the two tailed fox?"

"Honestly I have no idea. I was just running around, so I have no idea which direction I came from. Why, what do you want?"

"It's none of your business boy. Now step aside."

"Why do I get the feeling that you're not telling me everything?" Joshua got himself into a fighting position. He began to look around to see if Sonic was nearby. It looked as if he wasn't.

"You have no idea what you are doing boy, now move!"

"No way, a suspicious looking robot has to have more on his agenda than talking to foxes. What do you want?"

"That's it, I am sick of your insolence. FACE ME!"

"Wow, original. You might as well have said, 'prepare to die!'" They rushed at each other; the robot took out an oversized sword and swung as Joshua jumped over the robot, just barely missing the sword. He took a few seconds to find the weak spot. And saw the little pack on the back. He would try that first. As they ran at each other again, Joshua jumped up and over the robot. But using his telekinesis, he pulled himself into the pack. He hit it and fell to the ground. The robot began to twitch and turned around.

"Don't you dare hit me right there!" Joshua just smirked at this. He had found the robot's weak point.

"Wow, not a big invincible robot now. Are you?" He rushed in, this time sliding between the robots legs turned around and jumped up and roundhouse kicked the robot's pack. But this time instead of the robot twitching, he turned around and slammed into Joshua with his fist which sent him flying into a tree. Joshua got up and tried to walk, but his entire body throbbed in pain and refused to let him back up.

"Now, as you said 'Prepare to die!'"

"Joshua!" A blue blur jumped up and slammed perfectly into the robots pack and jumped off of it just in time to miss the sword. He landed on the ground next to Joshua; the robot was stumbling in confusion. So they had time to plan.

"Hey, I'm going to go into a spin, and I need you to focus throw me into his pack!"

"Why can't you just slam into him the way you did a second ago."

"I could, but it would be really tough because now he's fighting for his existence. If you throw me into pick me up with your psyche, and then maybe it would be hard enough to destroy this guy!"

"I'm a horrible shot! Barely anything I throw hits its target!" The robot began to regain its composure.

"I trust you, Josh! Now let's do this!" Sonic began to his famous spin along the ground. Joshua still didn't know how he did it, but he managed to pick up Sonic and raise him up into the air when the robot wasn't looking. As the robot turned around to face Joshua, Sonic was above the robot and hovering over him, spinning faster.

"Boy, always have an ending. And now, is your time to end."

"If that's what you think, I wouldn't look up!" With that, Joshua slung his head down while throwing Sonic down towards the pack. Sonic connected with the metal shell and went through the metal and landed on the ground. The robot froze still, and fell over a lifeless, well constructed piece of scrap metal. Sonic had to side-step out of the way so that the robot missed him.

"Where the heck did that thing come from? That was the coolest robot ever! You know, despite the fact that it tried to kill us."

"I have no clue, man. I honestly reminded me of a metarex, and those guys aren't even around anymore!"

"What's a metarex?" Joshua asked as they began to jog back to the workshop.

"Long story, but basically there a species that we had to fight because they were trying to take the life force from all the planets. But we defeated them all, unless one of Cosmo's seeds grew up really fast and tried to start a new group of metarex."

"Ok, now I am officially confused."

"I may fill you in when we get back to the workshop. We have to tell Tails that some 'thing' was trying to find him."

* * *

Meanwhile, in a ship orbiting around Mobius…

A man in silver electronic armor walked down the hallway, and his face piece was slid out of the way. He was walking down the hall slower than normal, things were not going according to plan, and bringing the master was not a good idea. He walked to the doorway and a scanner popped out and read his eyes. Once done, the door slid two different ways as the man walked into the dark room.

"Sir, a scout sent to retrieve the target was destroyed. What is our course of action?"

A voice said from the dark, "Do you have the footage?"

"Yes sir, would you like me to throw it up on the big screen?"

"Yes," A screen dropped down at that word, and the footage began to play. It was from the first person perspective, what he saw at first confused him. It was just a short, brown haired boy. How could a boy like that take out one of his scouts?

The footage continued to show the events that lead up to the fight, and then it got interesting. The boy jumped up higher than any average boy and out of camera sight, and then the camera began to get fuzzy, a sign that the robot's energy pack had taken a hit.

The fight played out right before the man's eyes. From the point to where the boy had gotten in several good hits, to the point where the scout got in a good hit, and even to the point where Sonic started to join the fight. This was intriguing to the man, but all that faded away when he saw the boy bring down his hand and the video feed cut. When the video was over, there was a silence that filled the room.

"Um, what do you think sir?"

"Hmm, amazing, we will have to keep watching and see what happens. This boy could prove to be most useful." A chill filled the room with these words. "Send some scouts down to set up surveillance cameras. We will make our move when we have more information. Also, tell the scientist to get back to work. And that they need to work twice as fast, make sure to remind them of what will happen if they don't."

"Yes sir," and with that. He walked off.

* * *

**Ugh, next time. I need to make sure to listen to something else other than dubstep when writing a story. I had a mini head banging session at my desk while writing this. But anyways, I have a lot of stuff to do. So I will continue writing and posting once summer starts for me. So don't think of this as a hiatus, it's more like a two week break. In the mean time… just don't die or do anything stupid (Dang, I need to think of a better footer catchphrase).**


	6. The Movie

**Ok, so I lied. The night before our church choir left I couldn't sleep. So now I am working on this obsession of mine! Hope you enjoy! Plus as always, read and review! I enjoy the favorites. But I have more of those than actual reviews. Let's go!**

* * *

Joshua just lay in his bed. He felt a sense that he had never felt before in his life. He felt sense of accomplishment. He had faced something that wanted to take his life and bested it; he wondered if the way he felt was what David felt after he defeated Goliath, on top of the world, changed. He lay in Tail's guest room, wondering, and thinking. His mind began to drift off, something he hasn't had a chance to consciously do since he got into this world. He felt his mind drifting off to another place, another world…

* * *

… The search for the boy continues as it has been 36 hours since the explosion that shook Southeast Middle School, there have been no traces of the boy. And whether the boy and any possible accomplices are on the run is still left to be determined. Police Sergeant Weathers spoke to us just minutes ago,

"Honestly, we're stumped. We have no clue what could have possibly been used or any other sort of detail, our best hope is to find the boy and ask him what he knows. If we find out anything we'll let you know. Now if you could please get out of our way?"

We have investigated these sorts of similar unsolved bombings all around the country and it all seems to have begun several years ago in Station Square CA. The center of the blast seemed to come from a penthouse previously owned by Christopher Thorndyke, President of Thorndyke Industries, a very successful electronics, housing, and astronomic research company. We are not yet sure if these incidents are related, but we have contacted the Thorndykes for comment. They have yet to get back to us.

We will continue to cover this story as it happens.

* * *

Dear Journal, I figured I would start this one because some crazy things have happened to me lately, and honestly I have no idea what to think about. Maybe one day I can look back on this and it will all make sense, but for now I just need something to write in to keep me sane.

I just woke up from something weird, and this was the third time something like this has happened. I saw what looked like my own world, but I'm not sure if I miss my own world to the point I dream about it or if I can somehow see what's going on. Is that a side effect of me coming to this world or is it one of the powers I have? Last time I thought of telekinetic abilities it wasn't in the description that I could see into the other world. I will come back to it, but for now I just won't think about it.

So far I have been around talking animals this whole time (If you don't count the maniac that tried to kill me). It's really interesting; these are the types of people that I don't usually hang around in my world. Sonic is the cool, popular type; Amy is the super peppy, energetic type; Tails is the handy genius type; and Knuckles was the dumb jock type. They have turned out to be really cool, though I wonder if they are nice to me just because they were good friends with my father. It would make sense, but I don't know. The world is just too confusing

I'm still not sure if this is the real world, I feel like I'm in a coma and I'm in a huge dream. I figured I should have woken up by now. But the thing is I feel perfectly in control. It's like I have control over it all in the same way I did when I was awake. Is this even a real world? I feel so confused, but what if both worlds truly exist? What if I really am stuck in this world, and I never get back? And what am I supposed to do here?

Ok, I'm going to try to go back to bed.

Joshua Thorndyke

* * *

Sleep found Joshua later on that night, he slept rather peacefully. But his awakening was anything but! He awoke to the sound of screaming coming from downstairs, he quickly threw himself out of bed and ran downstairs (he went pretty slow, because he hadn't quite gotten to the point where he used his powers without thinking). It sounded like Amy, and as he neared he could hear Sonic's voice trying to comfort her.

"Amy, it's not real!"

"But Sonic, his legs, arms and head got turned around in a complete circle! How can you find this entertaining?"

"I find the cheap effects funny! That's not what he would look like anyways!"

"And how would you know this? Wait, I don't want to know." Joshua finally entered the room to see Amy huddled up in a corner of the couch with Sonic trying to coax her out of fetal position.

"What's going on in here?"

"What do you think?" Amy hadn't fully moved on since their fight since yesterday.

"We were watching one of the Saw movies. I wanted to watch it last night, but Amy insisted we watch it first thing in the morning otherwise we wouldn't get any sleep. Want to watch?"

"No thanks, I already saw it at a friend's house." Joshua realized the awful pun and cringed, "So what do you guys usually do in the mornings?"

"Well, I go running, exploring and just chill. Amy likes to go window shopping, cooking and every now and then watch movies with me. Knuckles spend a majority of his time guarding the master emerald and I doubt he does anything else. Tails spends most of his time in his workshop, coming up with new inventions and also… well I'll tell you eventually."

"You sure, I'm always told I'll tell you later and I'm never actually told."

"Hey buddy, you can count on me!"

"Did it have something to do with that plant that he's always staring at?" Sonic and Amy looked at each other.

"Wow, you're smarter than you look," Amy said, "That seed was all he had left of our friend, Cosmo, and he has had a lot of trouble letting go of her. Don't let his front fool you, it's eating him up inside. Basically, we ran into her about a year ago. We took a long adventure with her and your father to save the world, over time Tails' feelings for her developed into something more. But in the end she had to sacrifice herself to save everyone, even your family back on earth. Tails was, sadly enough, the one that had to shoot her."

"It was worse than the sappy novels that Amy reads," Amy elbowed Sonic in the gut as payback for the jab he just made. "What made it so bad was that we all loved her, but he loved her the most. The weird this is, he believes that he will one day find her."

"That's awful! I never would have guessed. I shouldn't have asked; I'm so sorry for your loss."

"It's ok. Amy and I, along with the rest of the group were sad about it. But we understood that it's was what she wanted and that it was out of our control. Tails, on the other hand, has been placing the blame on him for not thinking fast enough to save her; and that it could have turned out different. We can't seem to think of anything to get him out of that mood. Honestly, I'm scared that it will get to the point where he may take his own life to see her again."

"Have you ever tried to introduce him to someone who can take his mind off it all? That would seem to fix it."

"We actually have tried to get Tails to fall for another girl, but that's also failed." Amy said; they all began to sit down. "But the thing is that one girl, her name's Cream the Rabbit, has been trying even before Cosmo came into the picture. Unfortunately, ever since Cosmo died, it's been even harder to get close to Tails."

"Well, we have to try to think of something else. We can't leave Tails like this!"

"Leave me how?" They all jumped out of their chairs at the sound of Tails' voice. "Why you so surprised I walked in? It is my house after all." They all looked at each other, each hoping that the other had an excuse.

"They were telling me about how… you keep yourself pretty much locked up in your workshop… and that you need to get out more! Any cool places that you like to hang out or something? I mean, really, is there any awesome theme parks or restaurants that y'all like to go to?" Sonic and Amy gave Joshua a relieved look.

"Well, there is the seaside theme park,"

"No way am I going there!" Sonic exclaimed, quickly interrupting Amy "I kind of have this fear of water, I can't really run it."

"Haven't you ever tried to learn how to swim?"

"I have, but my body is made for running and not swimming. Every time I try to learn how to swim it doesn't work."

"So how about we go shopping?"

"Amy, every time we go, we just watch as you go into stores and try on clothes that we now you can't afford or refuse to buy for one reason or another. That's how you have been stuck with that same old dress that you wear for a day and then wash at the end of the day. I'm not sure about Sonic or Joshua, but watching you go through 15 stores trying clothes on isn't very fun."

"Is there any good places to go eat? I love trying out new foods."

"Hey, I know this place that serves the best,"

"NO CHILI DOGS!" Tails and Amy yelled out in unison, making both Sonic and Joshua flinch at the response.

"How about a movie, what do y'all want to see? I have noticed that you guys have a few of the same movies that we have back in my world." They all began to think, and they all came up with different responses.

"Hey, how about we go see Rio?"

"It's a kid's movie, Tails. I know your 9 or something like that, but don't you want to watch something that would require a little more intelligence to enjoy?"

"How about the new Pirates movie, I heard it was good."

"Amy, I saw the first movie and it was cool. I tried to watch the second one and got bored and stopped it. How about we watch Thor?"

"Nice choice Sonic, I've wanted to see that. My mom couldn't take me, and my dad is always out of town."

"Thor it is then! I'll go get the tickets, you guys just chill until then." Then with that, Sonic ran to the theater.

"You guys might want to go get ready; Sonic will probably get moved to the front of the line being the celebrity and all. Joshua, I have some clothes in my room that might fit you. Come with me." They headed to Tails' room; it had a ton of different time saving gadgets all over it. But the one that Tail's used was in the corner. "Believe it or not, I actually do wear clothes every now and then, just not regularly. For the most part I use this on my human friends and to organize my shoes."

"You have human friends? I haven't seen any other humans here, besides Eggman."

"I have a few, but that's not really important. What is important is that we get you something that will fit. The thing is I'm no Amy so it probably won't look the best. Amy's the one with the sense of style."

"Then why in the world does she wear that stupid looking dress every day? It's ok, but seriously it's kind of stupid to wear it every day."

"Be quiet, the bathroom is right next to my room. She will probably get mad if she hears you! And you need all the points you can get seeing as you're in the red with her." They activated the machine and a screen popped out.

**PLEASE CHOOSE A PERSON OR ADD A NEW ONE. **Joshua could already tell this was going to be cool, as Tails' inventions usually stepped up to the machine and into the space in the center. A wide green ray shot out of both sides and scanned him top to bottom. Then came up with all the clothes Tails had that would fit him. There was a surprising amount that fit him (Is he really that short?). From brand name shirts, to shirts with funky designs, to plain grey shirts, Tails had it all.

"Dude," Joshua said from inside the capsule, "I thought you said you didn't wear very many cloths! You have tons of them!" monitor

"Yeah, I like to have a lot of them on hand, unlike Amy of course. Computer, move the selection control in the capsule for inside use." **CONTROL MOVED, PLEASE MAKE SELECTION AND THEN STAND STILL FOR DRESSING.** The monitor inside the capsule didn't change much, but text appeared on the square inside monitor saying"Please make selection." It was a hard decision because the screen displayed a miniature version of him, and he could see himself wearing the clothes to see how they would look on him. He slid it along looking for the perfect outfit when it hit him. It was a plain, worn out grey t-shirt with some jeans that gave him kind of a country boy look. He selected the outfit and pressed the on screen button labeled done.

A cloud of smoke appeared, and he could feel mechanical appendages move all over. It sort of scared him, but the feeling soon wore off as the smoke began to fade. The old clothes he was wearing were gone, replaced by the clothes he had placed on him. It was really cool, and looked perfect on him. He wasn't just amazed at how good he looked, but was astonished that Tails, once again, had done the impossible. Sonic entered the room just as Joshua stepped out of the machine.

"Hey you guys, you ready to go? Wow dude, you look awesome! Is Amy almost done?"

"I have no idea, why do girls feel the need to take forever in the bathroom getting ready?

"My guess would be is that it's part of being female," Tails said "They just naturally feel it takes a lot to get ready, which is strange to us guys a lot of us just apply deodorant and comb out hair and we're done."

"Speaking of done," Amy said as she appeared through the bathroom door, "You guys ready to go?"

"Yeah, we were waiting on you. Let's go!" Tails exclaimed as they all headed for the hanger/workshop. Meanwhile, outside the window, an outline of something transparent stood outside the window.

* * *

The room seemed darker than before, and much more eerie. "Ok sir, they are about to go out in public where their defenses will be the weakest. Would you like me to ready the troops?"

"Yes, this time we will get that fox as well as the boy. After watching him, I have the feeling that they are both the key." The soldier's armor folded back up across his face as he punched in commands on his wrist computer and left the room.

"This better go according to plan, we can't afford much more."

* * *

**I now have a respect for every other author on that actually has a fan base. It's so hard to put out a quality storyline before fans start complaining for the next chapter (not that I have any, do I?). Life takes over fast. Question, do you prefer seeing them go about their regular lives? Or do you prefer the action? Also, do you think there is any sort of pacing issues? Honestly, I sort of feel like there are some pacing issues. It's sad. Anyways… MAN! I hate not having something to say at the end.**

**Till next time: cliché**

**Have a nice, abuse-free day: I'd rather have no relation to ****_**

**Same time, same channel: This isn't Television.**

**Keep on trolling: No, I am nowhere near as funny as RWJ**

**I can't think of anything? Want to help? Leave a review saying so. For the majority of you that don't have an account, anonymous reviews are open.**

**Peace out… ANOTHER CLICHÉ!**


	7. The Dawn of War

** Nothing at all, *sigh* oh well. At least give me a troll to make fun of.**

* * *

They all hopped out of the X Tornado and headed to the entrance of the movie theater on the edge of the city. Joshua was ready to be able to watch a movie with his new friends… but something wasn't right. He had a gut feeling, the kind you get right before a robber enters your house. He began to look around, a knot in his stomach. He didn't see much of anything, but in some places there was a hazy transparency, kind of like gasoline in the air. He tried his best to brush it off, to no avail.

"Hey guys, do you see that?"

"See what?" Sonic said as they all began to look around. Joshua pointed to the front of the entrance.

"Come on, don't you see it? It just looks weird."

"Joshua," Amy said, looking at him with an exasperated expression. "Someone is probably having a barbecue, it's a nice day." Joshua looked around, but he didn't see anyone. And there was no trace of gasoline to follow.

"But look, it's like it's all concentrated into one area. How is that possible if someone is grilling someone?"

"I don't know, but if we don't get in there soon the movie's going to start without us, let's go!"

Joshua stopped in his tracks; he wasn't sure what to do. He looked down on the ground in defeat, but off to the side he saw a stone. He thought to himself, it couldn't hurt to just throw it and see. He picked it up and threw it up in the air and caught it. He looked at the haze, and then, using his psyche to push the rock, threw it at amazing speeds. His friends looked back at him, and then looked up. There was an electric shock around the haze, and a metal looking hole with wires hanging inside it. Suddenly the haze transformed into ten different robots, the one with a hole in it fell over, lifeless.

"Run!" was all that came from Sonic's mouth as the robots pulled out their energy swords and charged, two robots went after each of them with an extra one on Joshua.

The world seemed to go into slow motion as one of the robots jumped from the top of the building with sword raised, Joshua dived out of the way as the robot brought it's sword down on a bystander cutting him in half and causing him to fall apart. Joshua threw up at the sight, but he spit the rest of it out and ran towards the parking lot where the X tornado had been parked. He jumped in the passenger/gunner seat and loaded up the main guns. He tried his best to remember the instructions Tails had given him when touring the X Tornado. The robots were flying at him at incredible speeds; he began to track the robots one at a time, trying to lock on them. He got one in his sights and began to fire. Many of the bullets missed the robot and flew off into the air, but enough of them hit the robot enough to send him flying off into one of the skyscrapers on the edge of town blowing up the entire floor. He aimed at the second one, which was much closer that the first. He shot it down, but it started to fly at him. Joshua hit the ejector seat button and flew up and out just before the robot hit the X Tornado, blowing it up.

Meanwhile, Sonic was dashing all over, mainly trying to outrun the robot and then lurch back at it. He led the robots into the city, dodging cars and grinding rails down stairs. He found a slope to run up and charged, he ran on it and next thing he knew he was running up the wall. He looked down; the robots still flew at him. He pushed of the wall and flipped backwards. Curling up in a ball, he threw himself down on the robots. He succeeded, and went through one of them. The other he slammed into, disrupting his flight pattern. As they tumbled to the ground, Sonic grabbed the head and pulled the helmet off. He would have to save this so Tail's could analyze it later. Right before he reached the ground, he pushed off with enough force to fly upwards reducing the fall speed. He landed on his feet, and ran back the theater.

Amy and Tails double teamed their robots, with Tails flying Amy around as she used her hammer to beat their metallic bodies. Tails flew up, carrying Amy really high into the sky with the robots flying up to meet them.

"You trust me right?"

"Yeah, let's do it!"

He dropped Amy, and she began to fall. She landed on the closest one and swung really hard and smashed his head in. She jumped down to the next robot and smashed his head in. She did the same for the next robot but when she tried to smash the robots head in it started doing evasive maneuvers leaving Amy to hang on for dear life on the robot. It flew up and then went straight down towards the ground, but quickly used an air brake and sent Amy flying towards the ground. She fell, screaming and flailing, to the ground. Tails quickly flew down and grabbed her hands from underneath, flung her around and sent her flying back up into the air soaring towards the robot and swung her hammer head first into the robot sending the robot fly straight down with the rest of his kind. Tail's was cheering Amy on but wasn't paying attention to the hunk of metal that was falling to him. It smashed into him, knocking him through the air towards the ground, leaving Amy to continue her screaming and flailing routine.

Joshua fumbled around for something to activate the parachute which activated by itself. He looked around, and saw that there was a pistol in the compartment below the seat. He reached for it and took it out. He aimed it at the robot and then shot as fast as he could, but the robot continued to rush at him. He used his powers to push the robot into the theater wall, the wall fell apart leaving many of the people in the room either dead or wounded. The smashed robot got up, pull out a gun, and shot back. They missed Joshua, which confused him. He looked up and saw most of them rip up his parachute, which ripped even more by the wind and fell apart. This left Joshua tumbling toward the ground the rest of the way, he thought it was going to be the end of him. But then he began to remember, Tails said something about him being able to use his ability to fly. So he began to unbuckle himself and thought about what might happen. He might screw up and die. But then he thought again, if he didn't do something then he would die either way. So he unbuckled and then tried to push off the ground using his powers, he managed to do so and floated to the ground without much pressure. He saw the robot pick up a car and throw it in his direction. He was able to see that it wouldn't hit him but slide into him instead. This wouldn't have been a problem to dodge, but there was a girl in the way. He used his powers to rush as fast as he could towards her. He swept her up and then jumped over the car right before it slid into her.

He suddenly lost his focus, he looked at her instead. He was breath taken, maybe it was her dark hair that was medium length and smelled like the ocean, and maybe it was her green eyes. Maybe it was just her overall look. Or maybe it had nothing to do with her and it was the thought of saving the damsel in distress. He didn't know, but if he couldn't get his head straight then this fight will be over real fast. He landed off to the side and set her there.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you. Do you need me to do anything?"

"Just get far away from this battleground as fast as you can!" He ran off to face the robot with a new confidence. This thing was going to end fast.

Meanwhile Sonic was rushing back to the theater, when he saw Amy falling though the air. He looked around for something, anything, to get him up in the air. He ran as fast as he could and noticed a bike ramp set up in the middle of the street. Throwing the head off to the side, he ran straight towards it, hit it, and sailed into the air. He headed straight to her and caught her bridal style. He landed on the ground in a graceful run. He set her down and began to check on her.

"Sonic you're my hero! I love you!" She tackled him to the ground and nearly smothered him to death.

"Whoa, chill out Amy. We gotta find Joshua. Tails, do you know what happened?" Suddenly they heard a loud thud from the other side of the theater. And saw people rushing from that direction. "I bet that Joshua's kicking butt over there. Come on!"

* * *

"Sir, the ten robot soldiers we sent are losing! We are awaiting orders."

"Send down the main troops, remember we need them alive! They can kill the hedgehog and the girl if necessary, but that robot almost sliced that boy in half. We cannot lose this battle soldier!" Chills ran down the lieutenant's spine. He ran out ready to scream in terror, like he had seen the Tails Doll in real life. The Commander yelling at you meant some seriously bad news.

* * *

Joshua raced at the robot, firing the gun as he ran. The robot brought down his fist, and Joshua jumped over him, twirling while shooting at the same time. He landed on top of a car, and began to pick it up. He raised it high enough to be at head level with the robot, and threw the car, doing a back flip as it rushed from underneath his feet. It hit straight in the chest and blew up, knocking the robot into the pavement. As the robot lay in the ground, Joshua ran up and raised a gun to his head.

"Don't mess with me." He switched the gun to energy mode, charged it, and blew a hole in the robot. He looked up in the air to see more troops rushing from the air, and looked behind him to see G.U.N. troops and vehicles rushing up. This can't be good, he thought, what have we started? He would find up soon as he ran up to meet his friends.

"Guys, this thing's getting out of hand!"

"Yeah we need to get out of here, let's head to the X Tornado!"

"Umm, Tails… X kind of got totaled. I headed there to use the guns and I even shot two down. But the second one flew into it. Sorry. And besides, we have to fight back we can't just run!

"Joshua," Amy said, "you need to think about it. One of us is bound to get killed or injured if we keep this up. Besides, let G.U.N. handle it."

"Amy, YOU need to think about it. They're coming after us, if we run they will follow and G.U.N. can't chase them everywhere. And we can run, but how long will that go on before something happens to one of us? I say we take a stand here, with all these firearms, and take them out!"

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you guys but I'm itching for a fight! It's been kind of slow anyways, we need to get up and do something!"

"There you go! Let's go join them and take these suckers out!" They all rushed back to where the troops were standing. G.U.N. had pulled out every stop, with troops that were armed with assault rifles and rocket launcher, to tanks, to AA guns and missiles.

"Will you people tell me what's going on?" One of the captains said as he approached Sonic and the gang, he must have assumed it had something to do with them because of who they were. "I haven't seen an upset like this in a while! I'm about to have you arrested for disturbing the peace."

"Well, I'm not too sure if you can arrest robots. If you can, feel free to arrest those boneheads up there!" Sonic looked up at the incoming army, they were getting closer. "Thanks for coming anyways, we really need the backup. Can we use some of these weapons?"

"You have in the past, I can't see why not, except for this kid right here. I doubt you have experience with these types of weapons, besides why shouldn't I tell you to run on home?"

"Because they seem to be after me too, and I have to fight back. Now why would they send a whole army after me when they can just rush me? Obviously something is up, and there is something special about me. Now how about you let me man the AA gun?"

"That's rather pathetic reasoning. But since most of our troops are busy with other things then we need all the people we can! Fine, you can use the AA gun. Now hurry! They're almost here!" They all rushed off to different positions, Sonic went with the foot soldiers and picked up one of the guns laying there, Tails was the repair man, and Amy sat next to Joshua in the AA gun. They were told how to use it, but it was pretty basic for a reason. It was controlled by a joystick, and used a special screen that could zoom in on targets, making it useful to shoot farther targets. It also had other different modes that they wouldn't need. Joshua sat in the gunner's seat, and Amy sat in the driver and communication seat. They got much closer, and Joshua hit the zoom button. The screen read,

** 5 yards until within range**

He checked himself, he was really about to take on an army of robots.

** 3 yards until within range**

Time seemed to slow down for Joshua as he flicked up the cap on the trigger.

** 2 yards until within range**

He wasn't sure why, but a sense of dread instantly washed over him. He tensed up.

** 1 yard until within range**

The sense of dread got stronger, either the fact that he was about to go into battle had finally hit him, or something was incredibly wrong.

** TARGET WITHIN RANGE!**

He squeezed the trigger with all his might, and the gun lit up, pumping pound after pound of lead into the air and sending sailing straight at the robots. The former deafening quiet was now filled with the sound of explosions and banging. Within three seconds Joshua quickly realized what was wrong, with every single bullet that hit the robot, a red mist followed. His stomach suddenly dropped with the realization, he had just killed a person.

"Amy, did you see that?"

"Unfortunately, I'm witnessing that in fifty different places. Now get back to firing before you lose your nerve!"

"But I just killed someone's family member, someone's possible lover! I can't do that."

"If you don't, they won't hesitate to kill you and everyone around you. NOW FIRE!" This hit Joshua even more than the realization that he had killed a person. He pulled the trigger, with a new zeal. He shot to the best of his ability, but he felt the retaliation. They weren't going down without a fight. They shot back and dodged the bullets to the best of their ability, twirling and spinning in the air. They took out many of the vehicles and soldiers around him. It seemed like every seven or eight sky soldiers they took out, G.U.N. lost two or three soldiers or a vehicle blew up. While normally these statistics wouldn't be bad, but G.U.N. didn't have many soldiers in the first place. Things weren't going very good, and things were slowly getting worse.

Joshua was losing his edge; time seemed to slow down around him (which it seemed to do a lot). He took in everything around him; he heard the sounds of explosions all around him, and lead and rockets filled the air. It disturbed him greatly; he had seen scenes like this in big budget action movies. Never had he hoped or wanted something like this to happen to him. He focused back on his primary targets, which were the soldiers raining down from the skies. He shot down many soldiers, obliterating everyone he saw. Many soldiers made last ditch kamikaze runs on G.U.N. soldiers. Things had only begun in all of this confusion.

Meanwhile, Sonic was running around like a mad man, he shot some and then ran some more.

"Funny," he thought "wouldn't this normally be something that Shadow did?" He brushed the thought off and continued to run and gun. It seemed to work really well for him. He ran up the side of the theater that hadn't already been destroyed and flew into the air. Somehow, Sonic had managed to dodge all the bullets and land square on a soldiers back. He began to easily shoot down soldiers around him, but the soldier he was riding quickly realized what was going on and began to shake him. Sonic managed to quickly jump to another soldier and shoot down the one he had previously ridden. He did these several many times, but one had managed to see Sonic coming and quickly moved out of the way leaving Sonic to fall to his demise, if he wasn't accidentally shot down first.

His buddy Tails, who had been running back and forth, managed to see this and flew up to meet him. He moved out of the path of the bullets easily, making his way up to Sonic.

"Thanks little buddy, how about you bring me up more and give these guys our own aerial assault?" Tails quickly flew Sonic way above everyone and then let him go, leaving Sonic to free fall. He began to shoot them from above, picking them off easily. He managed to catch up to them, landing on one and killing almost everyone below him. They were going to win this fight.

But they couldn't have stayed up there forever. Eventually, some reached the ground and began to get into fights with the infantry. While a few stayed in their tanks, many jumped out and began to use their own guns and energy swords on the soldiers. It was a mass murdering, with many of the soldiers killing G.U.N.'s soldiers. Joshua began running towards the soldiers, collecting their own bullets in area in front of him with mind. After he had collected several, he jumped into the air over a group of soldiers and threw the bullets into all of them, turning the bullets into shotgun ammo using his powers. Amy had stuck to the idea of shooting at enemies until she had gotten close enough to pull out her hammer and start wailing on them, and it seemed to work. Sonic had finally landed, hitting the ground in a foot plant- one hand on the ground style. He took off running jumping on many of the soldiers heads and knocking them over. He eventually landed by Joshua, and they began to shoot back to back at the enemies around them.

"Hey Joshua, I have an idea. I'm going to do a spin dash, see if you can pick me up and keep me spinning." Joshua finished up the guys around him and turned around to see Sonic already doing his thing. Joshua using his mind, extended his arm (it seemed easier to concentrate doing that) and figured out where Sonic was going, turns out he could charge up his psyche and send a controlled blast. He readied himself, what he didn't see was the wounded soldier behind him approaching with his sword. He released his charge and sent Sonic flying through many of the soldiers. He turned around in time to see the soldier behind him. He pulled out his gun, but the soldier sliced it in half. He tried to throw the soldier back but found himself too tired to concentrate.

Joshua backed up and pulled out his sword. He began to duel with the soldier, blocking many of his attacker's blows. He got in one swing and managed to hit the sword out of the soldier's hand. Going for the kill, he brought down the sword, but missed as the soldier rolled out of the way quickly grabbing his sword. They began again, going back and forth. Joshua hit the soldier in the side, opening the soldier's armor. He pulled out and began to try for that spot; the soldier realized this and began to the fight harder, swinging with such force that kept Joshua dodging from side to side. Joshua began to wear out. He knew he had to finish this somehow. He then saw his answer; a gun dropped by one of the dead G.U.N. soldiers was lying on the ground behind his attacker. He tried to get the soldier to side step out of the way by inching his way around the fighting circle. He was halfway there when the soldier noticed the gun on the ground and saw what he was trying to do. Joshua threw his sword through the air at the soldier, with the soldier dodging and taking a swing at him. Joshua landed on the ground, held it up and shot at the soldier, knocking him backwards. Joshua aimed up and shot the soldier square in the head, killing him. He thought he would get out of this with just a few scratches, but looked up to see the soldier falling towards him. He moved out of the way, but not before the sword sliced into his side. He screamed, and started to go into shock. He started to get up, and saw the blood dripping out of his side onto the pavement. Then a sharp pain came to his head, and then everything went black.

The soldiers all started to retreat, all flying back to the sky. It was strange, because they were winning the battle overall. There were bodies all over the ground, turn the once black parking lot into a shade of crimson. The few gun soldiers that were left had gathered up in the center of it all. It was a sad day, and despite the strange retreat by the other side they had lost that war.

"Where's the captain?" They looked around and saw him lying dead on the pavement along with the rest of the bodies.

"This is messed up. How could this happen?"

"Well, you're the hero. How come you we didn't win this thing?"

"Well, just because I'm a famous hero doesn't mean that everything I do turns out right. You need to realize that my best isn't perfect, I'm not God!"

"Sonic, don't listen to him." She began to look around, "Oh my gosh, where's Tails? He can't be dead! And where's Josh?"

He had been passed out for hours and was just waking up. Last thing he saw, he had managed to kill a soldier in a duel.

"Where the heck am I now?" He said aloud.

"Nice to see you've woken up." Someone else was with him, his eyes adjusted to see the outline of a fox near him.

"Oh man, did we get captured?"

* * *

"Sir, mission accomplished. What should we do next?"

"Let them stir for a little bit, the time will come soon when we will need to use them."

* * *

**Ta-Da, now you have a really long chapter (by my standards) for you to read. Hope you enjoyed, because I'm taking a break. I'm not sure if this is a hiatus or not. I will get back to it eventually, I promise. Hope y'all have fun doing whatever it is that you guys do. Meanwhile, I hope I can come up with a good end chapter signature.**


	8. The Deal

**I am back! Did you miss me? You know you did! Anyways, I kind of think I know where I want to go with this right now. Let's get started!**

"Oh man," Joshua exclaimed, "did we just get captured?"

"No, you went to sleep in this cage, had a crazy dream, and woke up having forgotten where you went to sleep. WHAT DO YOU THINK REALLY HAPPEN?"

"You're claustrophobic, aren't you?" Even for an anthropomorphic animal, the cage was a tight fit. The fox tried to stand up, but the cage began to move. As Joshua's eyes adjusted more, he saw the cage was suspended in the air by metal chains. He began tracking them upwards, but it got darker the farther the chains went up.

""This cage is tiny. I am used to the X-Tornado and the little space there, but this is ridiculous! When did Eggman get smaller cages? Hey, what happened to your side?" Tails asked, noticing the several stitches in Josh's side.

"I got hit by one of the electro swords. But wait, I would have bled out by now!" He looked at his side, noticing the stitches in him. "Did they do this?"

"I don't know, but it tells us something!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, either they wanted us alive for a little longer, or we're no good to them dead."

"Huh, nice to know I'm of some value to the egghead." He said, rolling his eyes.

A light click on behind them, and they both shifted around and stood up slowly. A white, levitating chair appeared in the light. In the chair sat a black and white, complex, metal looking machine that was shaped like a human, all the parts on his body moved back and forth, independently. Joshua could only see a bit of the face through the blue-tinted window near the mouth. Other than that, Joshua couldn't see the human at all. It looked the same as all the other soldiers he fought back on the ground, which looked a lot like armor Joshua had seen in a video game back on earth. What was the game called? Vanquish, he thought.

"You aren't in Eggman's domicile, you're in mine."

"Ah, so the clunker speaks." The machine sat still at this remark, unfazed.

"Ah, so the boy has a smart tongue," he retorted, "Someone should teach you some manners, maybe cutting your tongue out will teach you!"

"What did you expect me to be?" The metal machine got up from the chair, hovering over to Joshua's. He extended his hand through the bars; Joshua looked at the hand as it formed into a rather sharp sword and was quickly brought up against Joshua's neck. Joshua looked down at the blade, and then gulped.

"I expect you to be very afraid." He said, tilting his head to the side.

"OK, point taken." The metal machine started moving the blade closer to Joshua's neck and pressed it against his neck. The cool feel of the blade sent chills down his spine as he tried to avoid moving. He didn't know better, but if he made any sudden moves the soldier wouldn't hesitate to run him through. "I take it you can form a sword instead of carrying around an energy sword." The metal machine ignored him.

"Do you know how many people I have killed with this, boy?" Joshua could just picture the machine licking his lips in anticipation. Joshua began to think, he had to do something fast or the soldier might kill him.

"Wait a second," he thought. He focused, ready to throw this man to the wall and rip him limb from limb. He actually managed to push him away from the cage. But before he could truly do anything, a major amount of pressure was forced upon his head. Making he reeled back into the side of the cage in pain. The soldier, who had already recomposed himself, began to laugh at the boy.

"Ha, you fool! Do you really think we wouldn't have noticed your strange ability? You are sadly mistaken! We made your cage out of special material that would send your psychic wave pressure back at you!"

"Wait, what do you mean by that? I threw you!" The soldier quit laughing and looked straight at Joshua, as if he had said something really dumb.

"Wait a minute; you don't know very much about your ability, do you?" Joshua shook his head as the soldier continued to laugh. "Amazing, you really are a fool! When you unleash any psychic power, you can focus it to an extent, but a bunch of it is release all around you in a weaker energy wave. So when you managed to catch me off guard and throw me, the excess energy came back and put pressure on your head." The robot continued to laugh maniacally until a plate on his armor flipped up and someone began to speak. Joshua tried his best to listen, but the voice was indistinct. As the robot flipped his cover back down, he looked back at his two prisoners.

"Looks like you two get to wait a stew in your cage for a little while, hope you don't mind the dark. Mwahahaha!" As the robot was laughing he floated back to his seat as it was being raised back into the darkness above them.

"Man, he cracked himself up. Hey Tails, why didn't you tell me about the excess energy that I put out of my head when I use my power, I looked like a moron!"

"It wasn't important then, I didn't know we were going to capture us and put you in that special cage."

"So, do you have any idea? Because I have no clue, and my head is killing me! It's a migraine too!" Tails began to scratch his chin, a sign he was thinking.

"Well, the only material that I can think of that is psychic-energy reflective is phyconium. It's a rare metal that isn't very strong or beautiful but is good for trapping some creatures that use lots of psychic energy. I figure that if you could focus the energy just enough in one spot, you could break the cage apart. But you still have to worry about the excess energy you send out."

Joshua began to consider the idea; he could rip a hole in the cage and then use his power freely to escape. Unfortunately, he didn't know how much of a wave would be sent back at him if he didn't focus well or send enough power. It would be risky.

"We might want to save that as a last ditch effort, because if something goes wrong then I'll be in a whole world of hurt. Do you have any other ideas?" Tails shook his head no. Rarely was the fox stumped, but one now was one of these times. "I guess I could shoot it once in that spot just to weaken it up. It'll make it easier if I try to escape."

Preparing himself, he forced the bars to move, but clenched his head and fell to the ground in pain, he landing on his side, hurting him even more. As soon as most of the pain subsided, he stood up and tried again, delivering the same result. One thought ran through his mind in between the sharp self-inflicted pain. This was not his day.

* * *

Sonic was running back and forth in the theater (it was his version of pacing). He had no clue what he should do about his missing friends. Should he wait for a message from Eggman? Should he look for any clues? Should he help clean up until he figured out what to do? His head began to throb badly, making it harder for him to think. He stopped in front of Amy, who was sitting on the curb, straightening her hair which had gotten messed up from Sonic's running.

"Sorry about that Amy, for once, I really have no clue what to do right now! Tails is gone, and Josh is gone. It's driving me insane!"

"I know. How about you sit down and we can think together?" Sonic knew this was one of her ways to get closer to him, but he didn't resist. He walked over and fell onto the ground next to Amy. "Now think, do you remember what they were doing during the battle?"

"I remember asking Josh to shoot me like a gun at a bunch of soldiers, and when I looked back he was battling one of the soldiers with a sword. I would have helped but one of the guys snuck up on me and knocked me backwards. By the time I finished the guy off, Joshua was gone!"

"When was this?"

"Towards the end of battle… come to think of it, a little while later, the soldiers called retreat and ran back."

"Do you think that they wanted Josh and Tails for some reason?"

"It has to be; now we know where they are! Thanks Amy, I couldn't have remembered without you!" He pulled Amy in for a quick hug then dashed of f to the highest ranking officer still alive, leaving Amy to lie on the ground.

"Oh Sonikku," Amy said, she didn't have any real chance, not unless he bothered to slow down.

"Wait, you want us to scan the area above us?"

"Yeah, if we can find their ship, I can try and launch a rescue mission to get my friends back."

"Did you notice what they did to us? We got wiped!"

"I'm not asking you to risk your soldiers, I'm just asking you to scan the sky above us and let me borrow one of your aircrafts. Come on, my friends could be essential to defeating them!"

"No, I'll scan the area above us, but I'm not letting you take one of our aircrafts just so you can do something stupid and possibly cause retaliation." He turned to his wrist communicator; hit a few buttons, and then radar popped up. He took out a notebook, wrote down the coordinates, then ripped the piece of paper out of the book and gave it to Sonic. "Here, now don't try anything, it's impossible." With that, he rounded up his people, got in the remaining vehicles, and then they pulled out.

"We'll see about that, won't we?"

* * *

The Joshua laid on the bottom of the cage, out cold. He tried his hardest to weaken the cage, but it seemed to do nothing. He felt powerless, and passed out due to the pain. Soon enough, he finally woke up, but it his cage was being moved down a very dark tunnel, with only a few lights every now and then so people who walked the pathways in the tunnel could see where they were going. He looked behind him, and he saw Tails holding onto the bars, looking around in a vain attempt to find a way out. He looked over to see Joshua slowly rise.

"Ah, so you finally woke up. You must have hurt yourself pretty bad trying to weaken the cage."

"You have no idea. So where are they taking us?"

"I don't know, but probably to the person he was talking to on the communicator. Maybe now we can find out what they want with us." They stood in their cages for a little while, observing the area around them. Soon they left the tunnel, and flew along the roof of a giant open room. As he looked down, he saw thousands of soldiers and engineers and various workers rushing around the pathways beneath them. Even though they were captured, it was hard not to be amazed by this massive marvel. But almost as quickly as they appeared in the room, they were quickly sent down another tunnel that looked similar to the previous one.

They saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Thinking it was another one of the mass rooms, they leaned out to look. Instead of a massive room, though, they found themselves in a much smaller room lit by a dark red light. As they looked around they saw various creatures, some of which they had never seen before, being dissected right before them. Though they couldn't see the actual red, they saw a liquid all over the floors and the transparent plastic covers. In one cage, a disgusting looking creature that they had never seen before, leapt up from a dissecting table and stuck to the roof of the cage making Joshua jump back. Right before they went down another of the tunnels, they saw the beast scream as its head blew up.

"What the heck was that all about? Tails, you OK?" He looked behind him to see Tails throw up onto the floor of his cage.

"We need to get out of here, what if they do the same to us? I don't want to die!"

"We'll find a way out, I'm sure of it." Joshua lied, he didn't know if there was a way out, but it seemed like the right thing to say. He closed his eyes, and tried to picture himself back on that hill where he had been so many years ago. He wished that he could be there right now, soaking in the sun, no cares whatsoever. He opened his eyes; this was his reality, not sure if he would be alive the next day, the next hour, the next minute. This was the true meaning of terror.

* * *

Sonic ran, trying to find Rouge, he had a plan and he was going to need her.

"You got a good grip Amy?" He said over his shoulder to a scared Amy, who was clinging onto Sonic with all her mite.

"Next time, I'll catch the bus!"

"Haha, do you want me to carry you bridal style instead?"

"YES!" Amy screamed, but she had no idea what Sonic had planned for her. He jumped, flipping her into the air. "Sonic!" she screamed as she tumbled through the air. Just as she was about to hit the ground, Sonic caught her.

"See? I wasn't gonna let you fall!"

"Next time, I'll hang onto your back instead." As they looked into the distance, they saw Rouges club. There was a bouncer waiting at the door. Sonic slowed down.

"Hey man, we need to get in."

"Do you have an invitation?"

"No, but we know the owner."

"Yeah, and I know the King of Mobius."

"We're serious, just go ask Rouge."

"Get lost punk." The bouncer said, cracking his knuckles.

"Come on, we know that if you weren't the bouncer then nobody would let you into anywhere, but do you really have to be a jerk to people like yourself?"

"Did you just call me a jerk?" The bouncer asked. It was obvious he was getting steamed.

"Yeah, you and your mother,"

"I'm warning you, if you don't shut up and walk away, I'll throw you so far around the earth you'll run into the back of the club."

"Ha! Do you think you could do that? I bet you're too much a wuss to do it." With that, the bouncer dove at Sonic and went right past him. With a swift kick to the face, the man was out cold. Sonic stood on his back.

"Remember kids, if you see a smart mouthed hedgehog, it's best to do what he says." This got a big laugh out of Amy. They opened the door and went in. Sonic knew the way to Rouges office, so he ran straight there. He slung open the door and caught Rouge in the middle of a "conversation" with another guy. As they saw Sonic and Amy enter, they stopped what they were doing, and Rouge got off the guys lap.

"So, do we have a deal?" The man, still a little flustered, nodded his head and walked out. She glared back at Sonic and Amy. "What are you two doing in here? I'm lucky you didn't mess something up."

"Nice to see you too, Rouge. Listen, we need your help. We need to get into G.U.N. and take one of their jets; we need one of your pass codes."

"Oh yeah, and what makes you think I would help you?" A smile crept across Sonic's face, he knew how Rouge played. This time, he had his own leverage.

"I know better than to come in unprepared. It's simple; I have some of your blackmail material hidden away." Rouges sultry smile vanished at this, "Yeah, and if you don't want me to give the material back to their 'owners' and ruin some of your assets, then you might want to help."

"How did you get that? I hid those well!"

"You may have, and yet we are still in this situation."

"You're bluffing…"

"Really, then go look for yourself, I believe you will find that the tape for the Chairman of the Board for MCT is missing, as well as the ones for all of the Board of Directors at G.U.N." Rouge ran into the back room and checked her stash, and sure enough, they weren't there.

"Alright, I'll give the codes to you." She took out a sheet of paper and then wrote the information down and handed it to Sonic. As they were leaving, Rouge asked, "Now about those tapes, when will you give them back to me?" Sonic looked back and smiled.

"Who said I would give them back? I just said I wouldn't show them to the people they concerned." With that, he scooped up Amy and ran off, leaving Rouge in a fit of rage.

* * *

Joshua's and Tails' cages stopped along the track and were lowered to the ground. After many sight, both amazing and disturbing, they were conflicted as to what would happen to them. Would they be let go after being interrogated? Would they be the new lab rats for whatever sick thing they had planned? As they looked down they saw an armored figure, similar to the one that had almost tortured them before, only this one's head armor was down. He was looking towards the ground, and the only thing they could distinguish was his tanned, buzzed head. As they touched the ground, the figure looked up. The first thing they noticed was the giant scar running down the left side of his face, as well as an eye patch over the left eye.

_Haha,_ Joshua thought, _a stereotypical villain. I haven't seen those before._

"Hello, sorry for the rough treatment thus far but we couldn't have you trying to escape. I am High Commander Ethanavus, but you may call me Commander Ethan." Joshua began to speak but was quickly shushed by Tails.

"Commander Ethan, what do you want from us?"

"Well, we need your help."

"Well," Joshua said before Tails could shush him, "Thank you for asking so nicely."

"I apologize for the treatment, but we had to act fast and diplomacy isn't an option at this point."

"So, what do you need help with?" Joshua said, this time Tails let him speak freely.

"Basically, there is a rather large rip in the space time continuum and we need your help closing it." Joshua looked at him confused.

"There's a rip in the space time continuum? Is that what brought me here?"

"It is very possible. And while we don't know if we can repair it permanently, we do know that there is a way to hold it off."

"Is this rip visible?" Suddenly a screen showed up above the Commander's head, which showed the ever growing rip.

"Yikes, that doesn't look good. How did it get there?"

"We aren't exactly sure, but records show a similar rip at random times in history that start out big but shrink as time goes on. The problem with this rip is that it started out as a small unnoticeable rip and continues to get bigger."

"Where do we come into the picture?"

"We need Tails to help us finalize the plan, and we need you to hold it still long enough to put the plan into action."

"Wait a second, how in the world do you know you need me if the research isn't complete yet?"

"We are in the final stages of the research, but we need someone to help us finish the solution. We know that we need a person with telekinetic power or a special kind of psychic power to hold it shut and put the plan into action." This seemed reasonable, but there was one thing that Tails had to know.

"Excuse me, what happens if the rip gets too big?"

"Well then, the rip could possibly get so large that it would suck all the dimensions together and crush them within, destroying everything that ever was." This sounded reasonable, as well as noble.

"And why could you guys be a little more diplomatic?"

"We didn't want to cause a big panic. If we can control it, and nobody ever finds out, then life can continue like normal."

"Are you kidding me? You launched a full scale attack and barely anyone survived. You'll be under investigation and every other city, no, every other planet will wonder, 'Are we next?' I think we are beyond the whole 'life continues like normal.' thing"

"Battles are fought every day, lives are needlessly wasted. People will cry, but will continue on in life."

"How can you be so… unconcerned? You treat life like it's a game and everyone doesn't really exist."

"It's the sad truth, but regardless, we need to act now as far as the rip is concerned."

"But, you're going about it all wrong. You say, 'We didn't calmly come to you for fear of someone figuring out and having a massive panic.' Really, you made a massive panic because now everyone thinks something is lurking over their shoulder."

"Don't you think we thought it through? If anything, we made a distraction from the big problem. What is one little worry compared to a massive one?" Joshua couldn't reply, in his gut, he knew that this was the wrong thing. Is this how war was truly fought? Doing something that is wrong for a greater good? And there was the big problem at hand, they had to do something, and they had to do it now.

"OK, I'll help. I don't approve of your methods but this is bigger than me."

"I agree, too. But shouldn't we go tell Sonic and the others?"

"Your friends will be alright, we have to go soon."

"Wait a second, we could take the Blue Typhoon and meet you guys there!" They both gave him a weird look.

"Tails what the heck is a Blue Typhoon?"

"It's a special ship used to travel the galaxy, we went on it to save the galaxy when your father was here…" Tails suddenly developed a sad look as he looked down at the ground.

"Hey Tails, are you alright?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine. So, can we do it?"

"Hmm, that should be fine. Just pack your things. But be quick about it." At this, the bars folded down and the two friends stepped out.

"Hey, can you close the cage for me really quick, I want to do something really quick."

"You want me to shut the cage with you in it?" Joshua nodded and the cage was closed. Focusing in energy, he ran at the bars. Using his psyche as a supernatural battering ram, he charged through with minimal pressure.

"Why didn't I think of that earlier instead of weakening the cage?"

"You were trying to break out?"

"Put yourself in my place, you're in a mysterious place and you don't know if you're gonna live." Suddenly an alarm went off and the room began to blink red. A voice screamed over the intercom about an incoming threat.

"That would be our ride down. Tell them to hold their fire." The commander nodded and spoke into the microphone on his chair.

"What are you talking about Tails?"

"That's probably Sonic coming for us. One thing you need to know about Sonic. When his friends are in danger, he will do everything he can to save them."

"Sounds like the definition of a good friend." Tails nodded as they made their way to the roof.

**And there you have it, the next chapter in my story. Thank you guys for being patient with me, I know where I (truly) want to go with this story. I will be going back and fixing any errors later, but here is the story for now. So, until next time, remember to review, favorite and follow.**

**~Josh**


	9. The Hero

**What's up? Are you ready to get back to the story? You probably are, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this (unless you're the kind of chump that skips to the most recent chapter and then decide if you want to continue reading based on that). But anyways, enough of my pointless ramblings, let's get on with it! Credit goes to XT-421 for the character.**

* * *

A crowd had gathered in front of Thorndyke Industries in Station Square, most of them were armed with cameras, notepads or tape recorders. They were ready to get any official word on the incident that had swept the news several days after it happened, and they were ready to find out why the incident was so contained.

Christopher Thorndyke, the president and owner of the company, stepped up to the podium that had been placed at the main entrance to the Station Square headquarters. His son had been missing for almost a month and he had no clue where he could be. If that wasn't enough, his company found a hole that was forming in space that continued to get larger. Both of these things had taken up his time, and he was exhausted. His hair was a bigger mess than usual, he hadn't slept in days, and he hadn't had much time to be with his wife either.

He stood behind the podium, hands shaking, eyes closed. It had gone public that his son had gone missing, but up until now, he hadn't made any sort of official statement. That was the purpose of the press conference. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and began to speak.

"28 days ago, my son attended his first day at public school. Two days later, after a major explosion, my son went missing. For a few days, the only people that had known about this were a couple of kind locals that had never met me before. But as time went on, the world found out, and many people have been helping me search all over the country and in several parts of the world. I would like to say thank you."

Then, he turned and faced one of the cameras directly. "Son, if you're watching this, I promise you that we find you. You don't have to worry; I will work my hardest to get you back. Nothing is as important as finding you." Tear started streaming down his face, "I'm sorry that I haven't been able to see you or your mother very much over the last few years, but I'm making it right. I know this won't get that time back, but trust me, nothing is as important to me as you are." He quickly dried his eyes and began staring down the camera.

"And to the people that possibly kidnapped my son, believe me when I say this, you picked a fight that you will not be able to handle. I will stop at nothing to save my son. Believe me when I say nothing will stop me. I hope you're happy, you pissed off the biggest company in the world, and nearly all of my resources are going into finding my son. You will pay for this." He recomposed himself and faced the general crowd again.

"I will answer a few questions now." Instantly, hundreds of hands shot up, all of them begging to be called. He pointed to one of them and prepared himself for their question.

"Sir, why have we only found out about this recently?"

"The fact that my son is missing had been on local news stations for some time before others figured out that it was my son and made a big deal about it. While I would have appreciated everyone's prayers, my wife and I didn't want to make a big fuss in case he got scared and ran for his life into hiding. After almost two weeks of searching, the more the fact that he could have gotten kidnapped sunk in. We planned to make it public in hopes of someone seeing my son, but the media got there first and we weren't able to make an official statement until now." He pointed at another reporter.

"Sir, witnesses have placed your son at the source of the explosion. Is it possible that your son triggered the explosion?" This was not the question he was expecting.

"How dare you insinuate that my son would do something like this! My son would never do something like that, if anything, it is more likely the explosion was part of a diversion to kidnap my son."

"Then how come the kidnappers didn't kill the witnesses and take your son silently? It would have made more sense. Besides, you said yourself that you hadn't seen your son in a long time. For all you know, he had been planning this from the start and is in hiding because of what he did."

"And for all you know, we may not be dealing with killers. Who are you to say something had happened one way or another?" Chris shot back, "They might not have wanted to kill them, just knock them out."

"Then why not trigger the bomb on the other side of campus to draw people over there?"

"You also have just raised a point for me. If my son had been trying to set off a bomb, why wouldn't he set it off on the other side of campus?"

"Maybe he was a suicide bomber?"

"If that were true, we would have found his remains by now. Unfortunately, we can't find him at all. Next question, please." He picked another person from the crowd.

"You said that you are spending most of your resources on this, why not all? Is it because of the secret project that is rumored to be going on at your company?"

"There is something else that we are working on. Mainly, there is a giant hole in space that continues to grow. We are currently working to figure out what is causing the hole, but we haven't had much success. I can tell you this; I have left it up to my top scientist to work on the project for the time being. My personal focus is getting my son back."

"Is this hole a threat?"

"We don't know at this time, for right now, it is not a big deal and should not make anyone nervous. If anything, we are trying to study it as an interest. I won't be taking any more questions." With that, he walked off, glad that it was over. He was glad though, because he had gotten out a message to his son. He just hoped that his son could hear it.

* * *

"I still believe that you guys were safe after all," Sonic said as they began to land, "and now Rouge knows about the ace up my sleeve."

"I can't believe you stole a jet from G.U.N."

"I wasn't just gonna leave you two back there."

"Don't worry Sonic, we're thankful. Aren't we, Josh?" He didn't receive a response. As he hopped out and checked the seat, he found Josh asleep.

"Hey Josh, time to wake up. We're back at my workshop!" Joshua opened his eyes, he felt like he had been asleep for a while. It was comforting to know that his dad was doing everything to find him, even if it may or may not be real. He couldn't decide if he was having strange visions of his parents or if it was all a dream triggered by current events and his homesickness. He didn't mind much, it was a nice thought if anything. He leaned up to see Tails nudging him to wake him up.

"Huh? Dude, what took us so long to get here?" He said, hopping out of the seat and onto the ground. "I've been asleep for almost 30 minutes and I know this thing can go faster."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Tails replied, "It has been 5 minutes since we left the base and you've been asleep for approximately 3 and a half of those minutes."

"I slept that fast?" His sense of time had officially been thrown off.

"Yeah," Sonic spoke up, "Were you treated that badly that you got that tired?"

"No, that's the strange part. I was asleep a majority of the time there!"

"Maybe it was all those self-inflicted hits you took trying to get out of the cage."

"I really don't know Tails, it may be similar to jet lag but I have no clue! By the way, something has been bothering me. If my dad lost time when he came to this world originally, how come I am the same age as I was back on my home planet? I mean, doesn't that mean I should be a baby?"

"It may be because of the same reason that we didn't become so old when we first went to your world. Unfortunately, even I can't figure out why we stayed the same. It's just one of life's strange mysteries." They began to walk to Tails house. "Hey, I still have some of the stuff together from the last trip. Sonic, I still have some of your running shoes and Amy's dresses. We could leave really soon if we wanted. Oh yeah, and didn't we leave Knuckles here earlier?"

"Well," Amy said, "For all we know, he's raiding rouge's club right now trying to get the Master Emerald…" They all looked at each other, wondering if Knuckles had gotten caught in a trap while he was over there.

"Let's not worry too much," Sonic said, "Chances are he is handling himself well. Hey Tails, you have all of the Chaos Emeralds, right?"

"Yeah, thankfully, we didn't have to use them for anything. I've used them to power the various tools and equipment around my lab. We shouldn't be a problem unhooking them since I won't be using said equipment while we are gone."

"Hey Tails, are we gonna invite Cream and Cheese since they went on our last big mission?" Amy still tried to pair them up, even on a mission like this.

"I would, but she is going out of town with her mother. The both said they needed some down time away from here." Amy let her shoulders fall, but not too far. She was happy that they at least talked to each other about it. She wasn't happy that she wasn't told beforehand. As Tails walked into his workshop, he yelled back some instructions for Joshua.

"Hey Joshua, go to the clothing machine I showed you earlier and give it the voice command 'pick out vacation clothes'. It should remember you and give you the appropriate clothes." With that, the fox disappeared inside his workshop. They all went their separate ways. Amy went to go get some cooking supplies for the trip, while Sonic ran to tell everyone they would be gone for a while. This left Joshua to go in Tails house and get some clothes. He went to the room where Tails had shown him the clothing machine.

"It's hard to believe that I found out about it today. Feels like forever ago. Computer, give me vacation clothes."

**VOICE RECOGNIZED, PICKING OUT VACATION CLOTHES. HOW LONG WILL YOU BE AWAY?**

Joshua never thought of how long it would be, but he knew it would be longer than a week. Just to be safe, he told the machine two weeks.

**PICKING OUT CLOTHES FOR… TWO… WEAKS, WILL THAT BE ALL SIR?**

Joshua nodded and then took the clothes off the rack. With that, the machine powered down, and Joshua went and set the clothes on the couch, he decided to go pack some of the things Tails left in his room. He was probably going to have a lot of down time, and that game console Tails had given him was going to get plenty of use by the end of the trip.

* * *

Dr. Eggman lay in his bed recovering from the crash caused by the big explosion. His eyes were closed, and he was finally getting some of the rest he needed. He hadn't gotten much sleep due to his robot servants fussing over him and waking him up. It had been a solid 10 minutes since they last woke him, and he loved it.

"Dr. Eggman! Dr. Eggman!" Eggman's face began to twist at the sound of the annoying robots calling his name.

"What do you want, you stupid pieces of junk?"

"Sonic and his friends are leaving on another trip to space again." The yellow one cried out, "Although, Sonic didn't say what the reason was."

"Ack, they're going on another trip through space? Don't they know that the best time to travel into space is every two years?"

"Is it best to wait two years, doctor?" The silver chimed in. He had figured out that they took turns speaking. He could figure out why, and he even checked their programming, but he found nothing.

"NO! I just don't feel like finding out what they are up to. You two go find out."

"But doctor, we don't have time. Sonic said that they would be leaving in an hour or so. How are we supposed to figure out within that much time?"

"I don't know. Why are they in such a rush? An hour isn't much time to prepare."

"We don't know why, he just said an hour."

"What does it matter? The Egg Crimson is in horrible shape after the last trip, and the new ship isn't anywhere near complete! So what do you expect me to do?

"That's where I come in," replied a voice from the shadows. They looked over to see Rouge approach from the shadows. "I have the pass codes for G.U.N.'s intergalactic ship, I could give them to you and you could see what Sonic and the rest of them are up to." Eggman and his robots looked at each other and then back at Rouge.

"First off, why shouldn't I hack the G.U.N. equipment and steal it by myself?"

"One, because G.U.N. has upgraded security measures, and if you get caught trying to get into their system then they could trace it back to you. And second, by the time you get done with that, Sonic and his friends will be too far to track down." These were good points, but they knew her to well.

"What's the catch?"

"What do you mean? Do you mean that little ole me has an ulterior motive?"

"Rouge, this is you we are talking." Eggman replied, "You don't do much to help anyone unless you get something out of it."

"Well," she said with a dark look about her face. "Let's just say I'm looking for a little revenge against Sonic. If I go with you, I just might find my own little bargaining chip. Besides, you know about what happened to Shadow, and I have a feeling you're gonna bring him as a backup plan." Eggman and his robots looked at each other again then looked back at Rouge.

"Fine, you can come with us. Give me the codes, Decoe and Bocoe, you two stay behind and get everything ready, Rouge and I are going to go get the ship. Be ready to go in a little over an hour. Come with me, Rouge. With that, Eggman hopped out of bed and walked out the door. As soon as he was out of sight, they heard a loud thud. As Rouge looked around the doorway, she saw Eggman lying on the ground.

"Hey Eggy, next time you might want to try standing up slower."

* * *

Joshua sat in front of the TV; he didn't have much to pack. He didn't have much to pack, even with all the things Tails had given him to use for the time being. Tails seemed to enjoy making things for other people. He had spent a lot of time making things for other people. It was almost as if it was his hobby. Tails, although he was 11 or so, was the most brilliant person to live on Mobius. He had made many advances in the fields of science, aviation, and technology in general. It amazed him that Tails had done so much at his age. Maybe this is what people expected of Joshua after seeing what his father had done. He was nowhere near as smart as Tails, and thinking back on his own failures made him feel worse.

He didn't want to dwell on it. He sat on the couch, grabbed the remote, and turned it on. He began to flip through the channels, one by one, hoping to run into something decent for the 15 or so minutes that it would take for them to get back. He flipped through cartoons through news through sitcoms; finally he landed on one news program, trying to familiarize himself with the world. But this wasn't something from this world.

"Efforts to find Joshua Thorndyke have increased today, with government agencies and private investigation groups working around the clock trying to find the boy." Joshua stood up from the couch, slowly, and began to slowly walk towards the screen. "People are encouraged to call the number below if you have any information. It is believed that he is in the United States, but it is possible that he has left the states to another country."

Joshua sat down in front of the TV and looked close, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing. On his screen, he looked next to the anchorman and saw his picture. He reached, cautiously, up to the screen. As he did, the man stopped speaking. He looked over. The screen froze still.

"Hey," he heard, and instantly he froze. He looked over, and saw his image. It started speaking, "You're never gonna get back."

Joshua screamed and jumped back, not believing what he was seeing. Instantly, the door opened, causing him to jump again. As he looked over, he saw Amy standing at the door with brown paper bags.

"Are you ok, Joshua? You look like you've seen a ghost. Also, why are you sitting in front of the TV?" He looked over, and saw the TV was off. Slowly, he stood up, legs shaking.

"I think I'm losing it. I must have messed with my head pretty badly back in the ship. You got back fast." He forced a grin, but it looked rather silly.

"Haha, I guess I did. Listen, I'm sorry for the fight we had earlier. I feel silly about it really, forgive me?"

"Sure, I'm sorry too. I feel kind of silly about the whole thing anyways. So, did you get supplies for the trip?"

"Yeah, I'm the cook of the group, so I figured I'd get some things for the trip. It's helpful that we have a grocery store really close by. So, when do you think Sonic's gonna get back?"

"I'd say," They heard a voice near the door, "I'd say right about now!" on cue, Sonic walked through the door and into the living room.

"Impressive, so is Tails still in the workshop?"

"Actually, he was right behind me, but he said he had to get something really quick for you."

"OK, I'm back." The fox said, walking in.

"Um, wasn't it kind of strange how you guys came in right after we spoke about you?" Joshua looked at them all; he still didn't believe everything that was happening the way it did. It was too strange, like it was pulled out of some TV show.

"I never noticed that before. Oh, and this is for you, Joshua. It's a laptop; I figured you could use this for chronicling everything that happens. I guess you could call yourself the historian of the trip." Tails chuckled and handed Josh the laptop. "I was making the laptop as a little side project, and I figured since we were about to go on a long trip, you could test it out." He took it and looked it over. Aesthetically, the machine looked great. He had obviously put a lot of work into it. The cool part was that Tails was allowing him to test it out. He obviously trusted him, even after such a short time.

"Thanks Tails! You have been really nice to me since I got here, I appreciate it!"

"Not a problem, I'm sure you'll be careful with it. If you have any problems with it, just tell me and I'll make sure to note it." He then turned to the rest of them.

"OK, I have everything hooked up. We just have to go out there and get on the ship. Knuckles will meet us out there. I got him to let us use the Master Emerald to help power it on the condition that we let him come with us." Suddenly, the TV clicked on, making Joshua jump backwards.

"Oh, sorry about that Josh, my TV automatically turns on the news when an emergency bulletin comes on. Generally, when they come on, Sonic and I run to the rescue!"

"Thanks for telling me sooner. It scared me; I thought I was in a horror movie for a second. Is this going to put a hold on the trip?"

"Well," Sonic spoke up, "let's see what's up first." They all turned to the TV and saw several decently sized monsters running down a street.

"As you can see, several beasts are charging down the street wreaking havoc as they go. We aren't sure where these monsters came from, but it is unconfirmed if these monsters are related to the incident earlier today. A G.U.N. representative has said they are working as best they can to stop the monsters, but are crippled after the attacks from this morning. It was previously unknown why they were attacking, but upon further inspection, it looks like they are after a girl running through the streets."

Briefly, they showed a picture of the girl running down the middle of the street, which was at a standstill due to fleeing people running from the monsters. She was running pretty fast for a normal person, but it looked like the beasts were gaining on her.

"Hey Sonic do you think we should..." as he looked over, he noticed somebody was missing. That person was Joshua. "Hey, where'd Joshua go?"

* * *

Joshua didn't think, he just ran, faster than the speed of sound. He had seen the problem, and had intended to help, but as soon as he saw the girl, he flew out of Tails' house. Maybe that was his weakness, he wasn't sure, but that girl was the one from earlier. The way he felt then… he was unsure, maybe what he felt was the pride that comes when saving the damsel in distress, or there was something told him that there was something special about this girl. It didn't matter; he had made up his mind and wasn't going to let anything happen to her. He just ran, praying that he could find his way there. As he got close, he felt himself remember the way there. He didn't know how, he hadn't been here before. But he found his way there. And saw the monsters in the distance.

They weren't as big as they looked on the TV, but they were still pretty big. He dashed past, launching off one of the cars. Flying through the air, he found himself slowing down. As he slowed down, he saw the monsters below him fall behind. As he fell, he brought up his fist, throwing it down as he landed. When he hit the ground, a wave was sent out. It flipped cars and shattered things all around him. It also managed to throw some of the monsters into the sides of buildings and trip the rest. One problem he didn't plan for was the girl falling to the ground.

She screamed, not sure what had happened, a few seconds ago, she was running for her life. Now, she tumbled through the air. She wasn't ready to die, not when she had gotten so close to her goal. She closed her eyes as her life flashed before her as everything slowed down for her. Suddenly, she felt someone grab her as her velocity change suddenly. As she opened her eyes, she saw the one that caught her. She didn't know what happened, but time slowed down for her too. Something had come over her, and she suddenly was breathless. She felt warm inside, it was something she had never felt before. As they touched the ground, time seemed to pick back up.

It sped back up for Joshua as well, the sensation that had come over him felt amazing. As he set her down, they just looked at each other for a while. This was the girl that he had saved before. The one who had made him feel amazing in the 10 seconds he had with her. Was this love at first sight for him? He didn't know. Maybe, he could have more time to figure out. But first, he had to get the courage to speak.

"Um, hey, you OK?"

"Yeah," She began rubbing her arm nervously as she scanned him over. He wasn't the best looking guy out there. He wasn't tall or strong looking. He looked rather average. So why was she taken by him? "I don't think I caught your name earlier. I think I deserve to know considering you managed to save me before."

"Oh, my name is Joshua. What's your name?"

"Oh, my name's Jessica."

"It's nice to meet you, so why are you being chased by these things?"

"Well, they," she looked over, "Look out!" Quickly, Joshua was hit head on and thrown into the air by one of the creatures. As he was in the air, the creature lunged at him, ready to rip him to shreds with his sharp teeth. Joshua grabbed his neck, barely holding the creature back. As he tumbled through the air, he launched the beast backwards with his brain, the recoil sending him into the ground. He winced from the pain, and then opened his eyes. The beast got up, and was joined by the rest of his gang. They walked forward slowly towards the boy, who was pulling himself up at this point. All of the creatures looked down, and began to change. What once looked like oversized dogs were mutating into something more.

The creatures' lips curled back and their jaws snapped as a new mouth grew out along with much sharper teeth. The eyes of the creatures' began to bleed as their eyes grew larger; ripping the eyelids that once contained them. The legs were torn apart by their muscles, now oversized and bulging. Their hair also fell off, revealing red skin and spikes that grew from the creatures' spines. They had grown much larger, and looked much more fearsome. They then looked over, and as Joshua followed their glances, he saw the girl, standing there, shaking.

Acting fast, he ran to her, scooped her up, and kept running. The monsters gave chase, this time they were much faster than they were previously. Joshua tried to outrun them, but it wasn't working. He decided to get fancy, running to a building and jumping onto the side of it. It was slightly slower, but the momentum carried him. The beasts began spitting slime balls out of their mouths. He didn't know how much of a threat they were until he looked behind him. The sides of the building began to melt where they landed. He changed his plans and ran upwards to the top of the building. He landed and continued running, jumping from roof top to roof top.

"What are those things?"

"They're a special species of soldier dogs. They are completely obedient and will do whatever they are commanded to do. If they are having difficulty completing a mission, they go into a mutated state, becoming stronger, faster, more agile, and can shoot acid. The thing is they will die within an hour once they have activated it!"

"So we have to wait an hour until they die? Call me impatient, but that isn't an option. We need to destroy these thing, and I mean right now!" He looked behind him and saw the creatures; they were already on top of the building and chasing them down. He tried to think fast, but he couldn't think of anything. Even if he tried to use his powers, it would probably be too weak to do anything. If he set Jessica down, he probably couldn't keep all of them away from her.

He saw a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. It was slowly catching up, and soon it was beside him.

"Hey, can't you go faster than this?"

"I would, but I'm still tired from earlier today. I don't have much stamina anyways. Can you take her? I'll take care of these goons and you get her to safety." With that, he passed her to Sonic and continued his run and jump. He tried to think of something, anything, to defeat them. He thought, and good thing too, as he was approaching the edge of town. He leapt up, spun around, and faced the beasts. As he did, he threw his hands out, letting his powers flow through them and into the beasts, knocking them backwards. He landed on his back on the next building, flipping over and over. He got up, and ran to the edge of the building and looked down. As he had expected, the beasts, fell down onto the streets and were injured badly. He jumped over the edge and landed on the ground. This sent a pulse to the ground, hurting them more and knocking them into the air. He looked up, saw his target, and then jumped.

He grabbed it and began to push between two of the spikes. This put the monster in great pain and he began to fight harder. He landed, and began to tumble around. Joshua, who was on the monster's back, was pushed into the ground but narrowly escaped. He looked up at the monster. It was one of the weak spots, and that would be helpful. Suddenly, he heard the sounds of a jet, and then looked up. It was Tails.

"This isn't going to work. Sonic, we need to lead them out of there and into the clearing about a half mile to the west. Can you do that?"

"Yeah Tails, just give a second. I'll make sure to also give him the wrist comm. Just give me a second."

"Ok, hurry though, it's charged up and ready to go." He looked at the screen, the targets were locked on, and he just waited for the right time.

Joshua began to dodge the monsters attacks. He was getting tired, soon enough he wouldn't be able to concentrate and wouldn't be able to use his powers. He was already rather weak, and the adrenaline would wear off soon. Hopefully Tails or Sonic would have a plan, he looked around and saw a blue blur rushing towards him. As he looked back at the monster he was focused on, one of them had shot an acid ball at him. He didn't have time to move out of the way. He closed his eyes attempted to throw it back, but he couldn't before he was grabbed and pulled to the side. He looked over and saw the blue blur had grabbed him.

"Thanks Sonic, I was almost through."

"Not a problem, you can take them on when you're rested. We need to lead them out of the city. Tails has a plan."

"Why can't you lead them out?"

"Because they won't follow me out of there, they seem intent on destroying you."

"*sigh* OK, drop me off. I can run fast enough that they won't catch me. I'll lead them to a clear area. Do you know where one of them is?"

"Yeah, you'll enter the clearing about a half a mile west. Head a little farther, I'll grab you and get you out of there." Sonic then handed him the watch, "It's a wrist communicator, you can talk to me or Tails and it has a map and compass so you can see where you're going. I'm about to drop you off, get ready!" Sonic slowed down a bit, Joshua to put his feet down and run as well. Sonic then let go, leaving him to run back into the heat of battle. As he hit the ground, all eyes turned back to him. He ran, getting them to chase him out. He looked at the watch, he was getting closer. He looked up, focusing all his energy on not getting caught. Adrenaline continued to pump, and his body began to drag. He was so close.

He hit the destination point, and he was quickly picked up by Sonic who darted up to a nearby hill. As they stopped they looked down just as missiles collide with the beasts. They turned and shielded their faces from the blast, the heat colliding with their skin. After the blast had died down, they looked where the beasts had previously stood. All that was left was a large crater in the middle of the valley. They looked at each other, and jumped up for a high five. They had bested the beasts, and their teamwork had worked out. Joshua thought for a second and remembered.

"Hey, shouldn't Jessica be here celebrating with us?" Sonic ran off and brought her back. He set her down in front of Joshua. For once, they were finally able to see each other on peaceful terms.

"So, I guess I have you to thank for saving me."

"It's not a problem; I did what I had to do. I'm just thankful I came out alive. So, how about you tell me the whole story about why they were chasing you?"

"Well," She looked down at the ground. "I can't tell you right now, I just wish there was a way to get off this planet, they won't stop until they capture me."

"Well, we're going on a long trip through space, but I'm not sure you could come."

"Please take me with you! I could help however I could. I'm pretty good with computers and cooking. I don't have much stuff to take with me. Besides, if you guys leave, who'll stop those guys when they come back? The authorities weren't able to do anything." She looked at the ground, rubbing the side of her arm. "I feel much safer around you." Joshua blushed; nobody had ever said that about him before. He looked at Sonic, for an answer.

"Sure you can come! We just need to hurry; you have all your things close together?"

"Yeah, I just need to get it all together. How can I tell you guys when I'm ready?"

"We'll be back in 10 minutes. I'll run you to your place and you can pack up. Joshua, you go back with Tails, I'll meet you at the hangar." He nodded, picked the girl up, and then dashed off. Joshua looked down at his watch, after fiddling with the watch, Tails' face lit up the screen.

"Hey Joshua, what's up?"

"Hey Tails, here's the plan. Sonic is running the girl to her place so she can get her things together. I need you to pick me up somewhere around here and take me back to the hanger so we can finish getting things ready."

"Wait, we're bringing someone? Why?"

"Basically, those beasts are just the beginning. We're bringing her with us so that we can protect her."

"I guess it won't be a problem. Give me a minute and I'll land."

* * *

Soon enough, they landed back at the hanger and had everything packed onto the ship. They were almost ready to go; they were just waiting until they needed to pick Jessica up. Joshua lay in the grass, eyes closed and hands under his head. He wasn't asleep, but it was rest, and he could use all the rest he could get. Suddenly, he heard a loud thundering above him and opened his eyes. He looked up and focused, trying to find the source. There were no clouds, the sky was clear, and there were no planes in sight. After a few second, he noticed a small dot in the air above him. It got bigger, constantly getting closer to them.

"Tails, do you see that?" He pointed in the direction of the object, which continued to get closer.

"I have no clue what that thing is." He reached behind him and pulled out some binoculars. He pushed a button on the side and said aloud, "autofocus" and then proceeded to look at the object.

"What is it Tails?"

"I don't know, but it looks like some sort of winged creature coming down head first." Tails began to look even closer, using all he could to look better. "Its wings are purple and the majority of its body is silver. Its ears are spiked and its feet are like claws. Its eyes are green, and it looks like… It's headed right for us! Get ready!" They all got into battle stance. Joshua planted his feet in the ground and brought up his fists. Sonic warmed himself up by jump forwards and backwards, fist raised. Amy drew out here hammer and held it behind her, ready to swing it at any given moment. Tails, not the usual hand to hand or broad weapon type, drew out a laser pistol and aimed at the creature. They weren't sure if the creature would be evil or not, but they weren't about to wait to find out. The creature drew closer to them, close enough that they could distinguish several different features of the creature for themselves. No doubt the creature was ready for them as well. It began to slow down about 10 yards from the ground and landed gracefully in a kneeling position. The creature stood up, looking them over.

"Is this the kind of greeting you have for old friends? I understand it has been quite a while since my last visit, but how could you forget me at all?" Joshua, feeling brave, decided to approach the creature.

"Um, who are you?" The creature stood up straighter.

"My name is Xavier; model number XT-421 of the Rinocian Empire. I am a fully sentient artificial intelligence robot who is checking up on some of my friends in this universe. It seems almost everyone is here, but where is Cosmo?"

Tails stepped forward, an excited but angry look on his face. "What do you want with Cosmo?"

"Just paying a visit, I completed my last mission and figured I would check up on you two." He looked around; everyone had a confused look written on their face. "What's wrong? Was it something I said?" Tails looked as if he was about to cry.

"What are you talking about? Cosmo is dead!" A tear streamed down Tails' face. He had been struggling to keep his emotions under control while he prepared the ship. The feeling of pain he felt as he pulled the trigger began to seep in until he couldn't keep it in anymore. The robot, whose name was Xavier, tilted his head to the side as his eye color changed.

"Oh, I think I see the problem. I entered the wrong sub-universe." XT-421 almost slapped his metal forehead in annoyance, frustration, and confusion. He wasn't sure why he felt this way; he can't feel emotion because he didn't have a soul, so why did he "feel" this way? He began to reassure himself that it was artificial coding that was part of his programming, but it didn't help him at all. "This never happened to me before. So how did it happen now?"

Joshua took a step forward, curious about what the robot was saying. "What are you talking about, what are 'sub-universes'?"

"Ah, I seem to have confused you. Allow me to start from the beginning." The robot said, walking closer to them. "First off, there is this area called the inter-dimensional highway. It isn't an area like this, where you have the ability to walk around, but it is more of a place of mind, except that it actually exists outside your mind. I don't know how to describe it to where you understand, but it exists. Within the inter-dimensional highway, there are an infinite number of universes. These universes are books, TV shows, games, manga, movies, or stories passed down from generation-to-generation. These universes are stories come to life, where the characters live as you are right now. They have their own stories of all forms, similar to what you have here. It differs from the universe to universe, but some universes have the same stories within them. I could go on but I shall spare you the time.

"Within every universe is a sub-universe, which contains all the strong independent thoughts within them. As you can imagine, there are even more sub- universes then there are universes. These range from main universes, the sub-universe from which the universe is born, to fan-fictions made by -someone else. Currently, you are in a fan-fiction sub-universe, and I am from a main universe created from a fan-fiction sub-universe. As you may have noticed, new universes are always popping up, and it's a very complicated. But it exists none the less."

Sonic and the gang began to scratch their heads. It gave them headaches just thinking about it, but it was hard for them to rap their mind around it. The fact that there are not just other planets, but there are an infinite number of universes just like theirs. Places where people go to school or do their own thing just like them. Up until two years ago, they didn't know there were multiple universes, now they know there are even more universes.

"So," Tails was the first person to snap back to reality. "You said that you came here by accident? How is that possible if there are an infinite number of sub-universes and universes?"

"That's a good question. The thing is I was headed to one of the Sonic the Hedgehog universes, I thought I had the right universe. Strangely enough, I made a wrong 'turn' and came into your sub-universe by accident. It has never happened to me before, but for some reason it has."

"So Cosmo is still alive in this other sub-universe?"

"Yes she is, my fox friend. In fact, you two are married and should be having a kid right about now." Tails blushed, not only was he married to Cosmo, but he had a kid with her. Did that mean they had…? "I will have to be going now, I still have this nagging feeling I should return. Although, I don't know how I feel this way, I am a robot after all. I don't have a soul and all. Besides, who knows what might await me when I get there." With that, XT bowed, turned around and spread his wings. His jets fired up, and he left at the same insane speed at which he came.

"Well," Joshua said, turning to the rest of them. "That was very interesting…" He stopped and noticed they were all looking at each other in a strange way. "What's wrong?" He asked. He was interested in knowing what they were thinking. Sonic was the first one to speak.

"I have the nagging feeling that I've seen him before, but I don't know when." They all nodded. Joshua looked back in the air as he saw a twinkle in the sky. Maybe he would see this robot again.

* * *

**Yikes, it took me longer to write this than I thought it would! Oh well, I got it done. *looks at page count* HOLY CRAP, THAT'S LONG! Oh well. It was fun writing it though. Credit goes to fellow fan-fiction author XT-421 for the character. Check his stuff out. Will continue to write later!**

**~Joshua **


	10. The Way Things Get Out of Hand

** OK, about time I get started again. Let's see, when was the last time I published a chapter? *Looks at date* 10-7-11? HOLY COW! I left this thing sitting here for that long? Oh well, it's time to get started. I refuse to be one of those people who puts up a story and never finishes it. I will finish it. I will not let writers block control me any longer! I. will. CONQUER! *Throws fist into the air and looks up into the sky, then reality catches up with him* OK, enough of this madness. Let's get going.**

* * *

It wasn't much later before everyone had gotten their things together and loaded up on the ship. Joshua went to the bridge and hopped in one of the seats, buckling himself in, and got comfortable by shifting around. He looked at the rest of the gang. They were ready, as if they had done this many times before. Even Jessica looked as if she had done this before. However, she wore a different look compared to the others, but Joshua brushed it off.

"OK, thrusters are online." Tails said as he looked at the monitor in front of him. "Switching thrusters to maximum setting, stand-by." Tails pushed the large handle that was beside him forward. Joshua began to feel the ship vibrate under him, shaking him more than the launch simulator his dad let him use years ago. He grabbed the armrests beside him, bracing himself against the vibrations.

The ship began to rise as onlookers gathered in the distance, watching the metal mass float and go into the sky. It was a sight to behold, with the sun shining off the ship and the flames dancing underneath, seeming to wave goodbye to the ground as they got higher and higher into the sky.

Joshua looked out the glass pane next to him and towards the ground to see people waving at them as the ship rose. They got smaller and disappeared into the surroundings as the ship went higher every second. It amazed him how beautiful the ground looked as they went higher. He sat back and began to fall asleep to the vibrations.

"This is Blue Typhoon to the Destineer, requesting meeting place."

"Hello Blue Typhoon, this is the Destineer. Meet us at our earlier coordinates and we'll be off." The ship continued to rise. Soon, they were above the atmosphere and could see the ship.

"Nice to know you could make it," said the captain over the radio, "We saw you got into some trouble down below."

"Yeah, some freak shows decided to chase down one of our crew members. However, we were able to handle it." The chatter went on for a few minutes, evolving from the small talk to a coordinate exchange, and soon enough they were ready to go. Tails continued to talk over the radio, this time to the echidna below deck.

"Knuckles, are all of the chaos emeralds in place as well as the master emerald?"

"Yeah, and Tails, I am gonna make you pay for distracting me and making leave my post."

"Feel free to try, but do it after the mission is over. I still have to fly this thing." He began flipping switches, turning knobs, and saying his actions aloud. Joshua closed his eyes. He had always dreamed of going into space. He often watched as the ships his father's company sent up lifted into the air. He dreamed of the adventures the astronauts would go on while in space. He wondered if they ever ran into aliens and kept them as a personal secret. He imagined looking down on the earth and seeing the overview of the world for himself and not in some program. Now he no longer had to imagine. He waited for the Tails to engage the artificial gravity and approached the glass. He saw the large bodies of land and water. The geometry was much different than that of his home world. He saw the clouds seeming to mask certain parts of the world from him.

"OK, I'm about to turn off the AG. So I need you to take a seat Joshua, and make sure to strap in tight because we are about to engage the Hyper Drive. We don't need you to accidentally flip over the back of the chair and slam into the wall." This thought scared Josh, as he was certain that it wouldn't end the same way as if it were in a cartoon. He ran back to his seat and buckled up. Tails continued to spout what he was doing aloud. "Alright, prepare to launch, orientation set to Hyper Drive route 4258. Ready to launch in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…"

Suddenly, pure darkness seemed to surround Joshua. He couldn't see a thing. He couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. He tried to move, and soon he found that he was standing. Cautiously, he walked forward, not sure if he was going to trip over something or fall. A light turned on in a single spot. He walked into it and stood, not sure of what was supposed to happen.

"And now, presenting the freak of the century, here's Joshua Clegg! Let's give him a not so warm welcome…" Another spotlight clicked on, and into it stepped a tall man in a suit. His shaggy raven hair covered most of his clean-shaven face.

"Who are you?" The man smiled.

"Come on, kid. Couldn't you have asked something a little more original?" He chuckled to himself.

"You're talking to me about clichés? You look like the freak from my cousin's game called the Darkness!"

"Well, of course I can't be original; I'm in your head! It's not surprising that I look like someone you have seen before."

"You still didn't tell me who you were."

"All in good time, kid. All in good time…" Suddenly, the floor fell from underneath Joshua, sending him tumbling through the air. Soon he hit something, the shock forcing his eyes to close and open back up. When they opened, he found himself back in the seat. Amy had her hands on Josh and was shaking him.

"WAKE UP! YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP!" He put his hands on her pink arms, causing her to stop.

"I'm awake! What's going on?"

"I don't really know, we were traveling just fine and all of the suddenly there was a giant shock and ship stopped going so fast. Now we're getting shot at! Tails and Sonic are running for the ships to fight them, he said that as soon as I woke you up to send you their way. You better hurry!" Joshua jumped from his seat and sprinted. The wrist communicator popped up a map of the ship, guiding him to their location. He ran down hallways and staircases.

As if it were a booby trap, the ground fell apart beneath him due to an explosion, causing the wall around him to collapse and sending him to fall into the next flight of stairs. He landed on the jagged edges of the stairs as small pieces of metal hit him, however he managed to force back some of the bigger, more threatening pieces away from him. The fall knocked the wind out of him, and irritated him that he couldn't use his powers fast enough to save himself completely. He struggled to pull himself up. His chest hurt, sending shocks of pain through his body with every move he made. His head throbbing, he decided that it was an advantageous idea to use his powers to steady his body and allow him to float to Tails and Sonic faster. Soon enough, he was in the hangar. Staring up at the X Tornado, he set himself on the ground and walked in pain towards them. They were already getting in the ship.

"Tails, Sonic, what's going on?" They turned to him as he shuffled over to the X Tornado. "Wait; wasn't the X Tornado destroyed during the fight a while ago?" They looked at him and could see the hurting in his face.

"I have one that I keep in my garage and one I keep on the ship, but what happened to you?"

"The ship is falling apart, Tails. One of the flights of stairs fell apart under me and I landed on the stairs below. My chest is killing me and I am ready to walk it off and fight! So what's going on?" Sonic and Tails looked at each other and then back at him.

"Some space pirates set up a shock barrier. Basically, it acts as a hyper drive destroyer. It doesn't matter what powers the machine, it just destroys it! They use them to halt space freighters that travel on various hyper drive routes and steal their goods. We need to get out there and fight them off!"

"Wait a second, Tails. Aren't we traveling with a giant space colony… type… thingy? Can't we leave the fighting to them?"

"You obviously haven't seen how many space pirates are out there. We are all going to have to fight them to help." He reached into a side compartment and pulled out a gun that looked like it was pulled out of a sci-fi movie. He hovered to Joshua and handed the gun. "Look, if anyone gets through, use this. It's set to stun, and it takes a few seconds to recharge." He looked at Joshua gravely, "However, if you get into a bad situation, there is the vaporize mode. This gun was made for this purpose primarily. It has infinite charge and almost instantaneous cool down time. Use it ONLY as a last resort! Am I clear?" Joshua had never seen the young so somber. "Most likely their weapons will be set to stun so that they can probably sell you as a slave later. When we first gave you that communicator, it had a special chemical concoction on it. I found that it helps shorten your body's recovery time when stunned with no other side effects. So your recovery time should be about 30 seconds to 2 minutes. BE CAREFUL AND MAKE SURE THAT THEY DON'T TAKE THE EMERALDS!" With that, he hopped into the cockpit and the ship began to be lifted up, heading to the runway.

Almost as if it was scripted, a portion of the wall blew up with 4 pirates of differentiating alien species rushing into the area. Joshua jumped behind a crate for cover, only to realize that the container had a flammable symbol on it. He tried not to panic, and tried to scurry across the ground to the next piece of cover. Suddenly, he realized he was in their line of sight and rolled right as the laser hit the ground and was absorbed. He jumped up, turned around and started shooting, knocking the first guy out. The three others turned around right as Joshua popped the shot and began to unload on him as they ran for cover. Joshua ducked into a doorway and pressed his back to it. As a few lasers began to hit the corner near him and the wall across from him, he found a break and would occasionally pop off a shot of his own. He picked up a crate with his mind that contained various wires and such and held it in front of him as he charged out of his original cover. He made the box fly in their direction at a rapid speed. Using this as a distraction, he popped off a few shots and took out 2 of them.

He ducked behind another piece of cover and began to peak around. He couldn't see where the last guy was, and this scared him. He began to peak around even more, being cautious as to not get shot as soon as he could see the pirate. All of a sudden he heard something knock over a steel propane tank. It hit him; the other pirate had been trying to flank him since the beginning! He spun around and shot, not sure what he was going to hit. He hit the pirate in the arm. As he fell, the pirate let off one shot that hit two reflective surfaces, bouncing from one to the other, flew back in his direction, and hit the tank. Shrapnel flew everywhere, ripping apart the alien's body and sending a giant piece into his skull. It also lit a number of things on fire.

Joshua knew he would have to do something to stop the fire. Then he remembered something his dad taught him, a fire needs air. If he could cut off the air getting to the fire, then he could put it out. He strained hard, visualizing where his powers were affecting; he created an airtight dome around the area. Slowly the fire began to die, and soon the fire went out. That problem was solved, but because he had to use his powers in a massive way, he couldn't stabilize his chest. Pain continued to shoot through his whole body, causing him to keel over in pain. He stabilized his chest again and got up. He had to find some pain killers or something to stop the pain so he could use his powers elsewhere. He opened his communicator and looked where he needed to go. The communicator gave him a set path that showed the fastest way to the Chaos Emeralds. He ran, going down corridor after corridor, this time making sure to be ready in case the ground under him fell.

Soon he found himself in the power room, where many pirates were trying to shoot Knuckles. Knuckles clearly didn't have the same respect for life as Tails and Sonic, as he found several different aliens on the floor in a bloody non-living pulp. As he took cover, he popped off a few shots, managing to take down one of the pirates. He peaked over the top of the container, where he saw that none of the others had noticed their fallen comrade. He stood up from his cover and took the pirate toward the back out first, working his way up. Unfortunately, he missed one shot that went zooming by the head of the alien in front. He, along with the other aliens, spun around and opened fire on Joshua. He ducked behind his cover and stayed low. He had even more aliens shooting at him this time, and these guys were organized. Never once did he find a chance to fire back at them. It was a steady stream of lasers being fired at him. He moved from cover piece to cover piece as fast as he could. He was thankful for the railing with walls under them. Otherwise he would be lying on the floor knocked out already. He moved around until he got what he thought was out of their line of sight and peaked over. Thankfully none of them were smart enough to move in to see if he was still there.

But what was he going to do now? Pirates would start shooting in his direction when he popped off another shot, couldn't keep moving from cover to cover forever because they would eventually figure out his strategy. Thankfully he came up with an idea. He quickly peaked over cover, grabbed the appendage of one of the aliens with his mind and forced him to shoot his comrades and then himself suicide style. Jumping over the railing he had used for cover, he ran towards the Chaos emerald. Knuckles dropped down in front of him.

"Smooth going, kid. How did you think of that one?"

"Oh, I don't know, my brain maybe?" The echidna growled at him. "S-sorry" he stuttered, remembering what he saw when he first came into the room.

"Whatever, so what are those guys? I fall asleep for a while and I am awakened to this giant rumbling and get tossed across the room! A few minutes later, Zim and his friends here decide it's a good idea to bust up in here."

"They're space pirates and they set up something that kills hyper drives, Sonic and Tails are out there trying to fight them off along with the guys in that giant space colony thingy. What's it called, the Destineer? Anyways, I was sent here to help you out."

"Kid, I don't need any help. I am the guardian, it is my..!"

"Don't give me that whole 'my responsibility' junk. One of the responsibilities of a hero is to know when he needs help and to not to let his pride get the better of him!" There was a long pause. Knuckles was pissed. While most people don't take criticism well, he didn't take it at all.

"Here's an idea, you little know-it-all. How about you shut up or you will end up looking like those guys at the door? I don't care if you are Chris Thorndyke's kid! You will look like you were put in a blender by the time I am through with you, understand me?" Joshua didn't feel like arguing, he just held his tongue. "Good, now get out of here. Why don't you go check on Amy or something? I got this area covered." Joshua simply nodded and left the room, headed for the bridge. Once he left, Knuckles wiped his forehead. "That was close! For a second I thought he was going to take me out by making me punch my own face…"

Joshua wandered to the bridge. He couldn't help but be annoyed. Why did he put up with Knuckles crap? He didn't have to; he could have thrown him around like a pair of dice! It wasn't fare, how could someone who is a dedicated guardian of a giant magical piece of jewelry be such a blockhead? Shouldn't a guardian be calmer, not ready to provoke a fight and all of that? Oh well, dwelling on that only made him feel worse. He just had to focus on the mission at hand, protecting the ship. They must have been doing a good job taking care of the pirates outside; so far there hadn't been very many intruders as far as he could tell. He just prayed that there weren't dozens of pirates waiting for him at the bridge. He soon found the bridge and hugged the corner, listening carefully. He heard some struggling and grunting.

He peeked around and saw a few pirates attempting to use the equipment on the ship, probably to steal it. Then he looked over and saw that Amy and Jessica were tied up, being held still by two of the other pirates who had guns to their head. It totaled 7 pirates. It was going to be hard. He barely had enough energy as it was so he couldn't use the team/self takedown method.

"Looks like I am going to have to do this the old fashion way." He muttered to himself. He leaned around the corner and shot, hitting one of the pirates. The others began to open fire. He waited for a chance to open fire but couldn't find one. One of them yelled out something that he didn't understand, and they stopped firing, he took this chance to turn around the corner. Only to see an object that was blinking red fly towards him. In reflex, he forced the bomb back towards them at rapid speed. Smart idea, except it blew up most of the glass in the process. The bridge began to depressurize, and the space vacuum effect began to suck a lot of things out into the endless void, including the four other space pirates. Joshua had to stop it, otherwise it would rip up the rest of the glass and then nothing could keep them from getting sucked out. He tried to stop it, using most of his resources to seal the hole, but he was spread thin trying to hold his chest steady and seal the bridge.

_This better work,_ he thought. With that, he mentally let go and put all his energy into sealing the hole. It worked, and the cabin was pressurized again. He looked back at the other two pirates who had Amy and Jessica. They had their guns at their temples. One of them said something, there was a beep, and then they were able to speak English

"Nice party trick, kid. Now put down the gun." He couldn't consider it. That would be suicide. "Kid, I am not in a good mood. This has been an awful mission. Most of our guys were defeated by this crazy pink fur ball. We got her under control, and she might make a good slave. However, if you don't put down the gun, we won't hesitate to kill these two lovely ladies."

**EMERGENCY PRESSURIZING BARRIER WILL ACTIVATE IN 10 SECONDS!**

"OK, if you don't put down the gun by then, these lovely ladies die!"

**7**

It was obvious that he couldn't use stun.

**6**

It would take too long to recharge!

**5**

He knew what he had to do

**4**

_Sorry, Tails._

**3**

He flipped the switch on his gun.

**2**

He used what little energy he had left to keep their fingers from pulling the trigger

**1**

He pulled the trigger, sending a laser flying through the air; it pierced the scull of the pirate, leaving a clean hole where his eye had been.

**Activating!**

He turned and shot the other man, this time the laser landed on his forehead, by this time the other body slumped over. The laser burned through the second pirate's forehead, leaving him to slump over next to his partner. Joshua lowered the gun and surveyed the pirates. They were breathless, lifeless, just the empty shells of the aliens that had occupied the bodies. Joshua fell to his knees and over to his side, passed out due to the massive amount of energy he had just used and the high amount of pain he inflicted on himself.

* * *

Sonic and Tails were always an unbeatable duo, Tails was the wizard of the mechanical world and Sonic was the natural speed king and aficionado when it came to destroying contraptions he didn't like. Tails would fly around and stop ships dead mid-flight with his EMP charges and Sonic would launch a homing attack, sending them flying towards a nearby planet. It was a plan that was working out beautifully. If a large group of enemies chased them down, Tails would round them up and the other fighter pilots that fought for the Destineer would shoot them, and cause them to explode. Tails was nice, he didn't think that these pirates should die, but he wasn't going to stand idly by and be attacked.

_If only they realized this…_ Tails thought to himself. _Oh well, not very many people think the same thing as I do._ He has thought over this way to many times. This was one thing he wasn't going to deal with right now. He had a fight to win.

"Hey Sonic, do you see how many fighter pilots they have left?"

"I don't know. We must have hit one really popular attack spot. There are so many pirates that the only way we might stop them by blowing up the carrier ships."

"I don't want to think about that. Besides, the pirates have so many different carrier ships that it would take forever for the Destineer to shoot them all down. And they should be stopped for sure, but who are we to say that so many lives should end here?"

"Buddy, they are attacking us; they are the ones who initiated the fight. So what if they die, it is better off for the galaxy if they were dead! And the Destineer clearly doesn't feel the same way as you. They have killed more of these guys than we have sent flying towards that planet. Here comes another one!" Sonic yelled as one of the ships started flying towards them. Tails looked at the screen in front of him and, one he locked onto the ship, shot at the ship. The ship was still flying toward them, but was not accelerating. The ship started to experience a visual electrical shock as Sonic pushed off the X Tornado and hit the enemy ship, then quickly pushed off that ship, and landing back onto the X-Tornado. "They are most likely trying to find a way to destroy all of them in one fell swoop!"

"Sonic, I really don't think that they have enough firepower to destroy all of those ships in a timely manner!" Suddenly a giant green bolt shot from the giant space colony. It hit one of the carrier ships and then jumped from ship to ship, linking them all together. All of the ships stopped dead in their tracks, which was strange because there was no gravity and therefore no friction. The green bolt seemed to hold them together, bonding them together. Then, in a quick flash, all of the ships exploded in unison. The combined explosion was enough to send Sonic and Tails flying off at an amazing speed. Tails thought fast and spun the ship around, hit the thrusters and managed to keep the ship in place while Sonic grabbed one of the handles on the ship. The explosion died down soon enough, and Sonic and Tails were left in awe at the mass destruction they had just witnessed.

So this is what they were capable of…

* * *

**OK, that ended up being darker than I thought. Oh well, that ends the six month hiatus from me. How have you guys been? Also, since it has been six months since I had even thought of this, I was wondering if you guys noticed any errors or inconsistencies. If there were, I will try to fix that as soon as possible. If there weren't any inconsistencies, I would still appreciate it if you would tell me what you thought by reviewing and possibly favorite and/or following.**


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